“Helen!”
“Yes, Hobart, in my wish to make you happier
I am not bent on unredeemed self-sacrifice. You
have been the most skilful of wooers.”
“And you are the divinest of mysteries.
How have I wooed you?”
“By not wooing at all, by taking a course which
compelled my heart to plead your cause, by giving
unselfish devotion so unstintedly that like the rain
and dew of heaven, it has fostered a new life in my
heart, different from the old, yet sweet, real, and
precious. I have learned that I can be happier
in making you happy. Oh, I shall be no martyr.
Am I inconstant because time and your ministry have
healed the old wound—because the steady
warmth and glow of your love has kindled mine?”
He regarded her with a gaze so rapt, so reverent,
so expressive of immeasurable gratitude that her eyes
filled with tears. “I think you do understand
me,” she whispered.
He kissed her hand in homage as he replied, “A
joy like this is almost as hard to comprehend at first
as an equally great sorrow. My garden teaches
me to understand you. A perfect flower-stalk is
suddenly and rudely broken. Instead of dying,
it eventually sends out a little side-shoot which
gives what bloom it can.”
“And you will be content with what it can give?”
“I shall be glad with a happiness which almost
terrifies me. Only God knows how I have longed
for this.”
That evening the old banker scarcely ceased rubbing
his hands in general felicitation, while practical,
housewifely Mrs. Kemble already began to plan what
she intended to do toward establishing Helen in the
adjoining cottage.
Now that Martine believed his great happiness possible,
he was eager for its consummation. At his request
the 1st of December was named as the wedding day.
“The best that a fireside and evening lamp ever
suggested will then come true to me,” ha urged.
“Since this can be, life is too short that it
should not be soon.”
Helen readily yielded. Indeed, they were all
so absorbed in planning for his happiness as to be
oblivious of the rising storm. When at last the
girl went to her room, the wind sighed and wailed
so mournfully around the house as to produce a feeling
of depression and foreboding.
YANKEE BLANK
The wild night storm which followed the most memorable
day of his life had no power to depress Martine.
In the wavy flames and glowing coals of his open fire
he saw heavenly pictures of the future. He drew
his mother’s low chair to the hearth, and his
kindled fancy placed Helen in it. Memory could
so reproduce her lovely and familiar features that
her presence became almost a reality. In a sense
he watched her changing expression and heard her low,
mellow tones. The truth that both would express
an affection akin to his own grew upon his consciousness
like the incoming of a sun-lighted tide. The
darkness and storm without became only the background
of his pictures, enhancing every prophetic representation.
The night passed in ecstatic waking dreams of all
that the word “home” suggests when a woman,
loved as he loved Helen, was its architect.
