CHAPTER XII.

Marian, the inspirer.

It was not fortunate for old Mr. Willcoxen’s plans that his grandson should have met Marian Mayfield.  For, on the morning of Thurston’s first meeting with the charming girl, when he turned his horse’s head from the arched gateway of Old Field Cottage and galloped off, “a haunting shape and image gay” attended him.

It was that of beautiful Marian, with her blooming face and sunny hair, and rounded roseate neck and bosom and arms, all softly, delicately flushed with the pure glow of rich, luxuriant vitality, as she stood in the sunlight, under the arch of azure morning-glories, with her graceful arms raised in the act of binding up the vines.

At first this “image fair” was almost unthought of; he was scarcely conscious of the haunting presence, or the life and light it gradually diffused through his whole being.  And when the revelation dawned upon his intellect, he smiled to himself and wondered if, for the first time, he was falling in love; and then he grew grave, and tried to banish the dangerous thought.  But when, day after day, amid all the business and the pleasures of his life, the “shape” still pursued him, instead of getting angry with it or growing weary of it, he opened his heart and took it in, and made it at home, and set it upon a throne, where it reigned supreme, diffusing delight over all his nature.  But soon, too soon, this bosom’s sovereign became the despot, and stung, goaded and urged him to see again this living, breathing, glowing, most beautiful original.  To seek her?  For what?  He did not even try to answer the question.

Thus passed one week.

And then, had he been disposed to forget the beautiful girl, he could not have done so.  For everywhere where the business of his grandfather took him—­around among the neighboring planters, to the villages of B——­ or of C——­, everywhere he heard of Marian, and frequently he saw her, though at a distance, or under circumstances that made it impossible for him, without rudeness, to address her.  He both saw and heard of her in scenes and society where he could hardly have expected to find a young girl of her insignificant position.

Marian was a regular attendant of the Protestant church at Benedict, where, before the morning service, she taught in the Sunday-school, and before the afternoon service she received a class of colored children.

And Thurston, who had been a very careless and desultory attendant, sometimes upon the Catholic chapel, sometimes upon the Protestant church, now became a very regular frequenter of the latter place of worship; the object of his worship being not the Creator, but the creature, whom, if he missed from her accustomed seat, the singing, and praying, and preaching for him lost all of its meaning, power and spirituality.  In the churchyard he sometimes tried to catch her eye and bow to her;