I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand:
and so was the smile which matched it, and accompanied
his “Good-night.”
* * * *
*
And had there been anything in the garret? What
did they discover? I believe, on the closest
examination, their discoveries amounted to very little.
They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed;
but Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they
hung much as usual: and as for the broken pane
in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was rarely
without one or more panes broken or cracked: and
besides, a heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days
ago. Madame questioned me very closely as to
what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the
word “nun,” certain that this word would
at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and
unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the
subject to any servant, pupil, or teacher, and highly
commended my discretion in coming to her private salle-a-manger,
instead of carrying the tale of horror to the school
refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was
left secretly and sadly to wonder, in my own mind,
whether that strange thing was of this world, or of
a realm beyond the grave; or whether indeed it was
only the child of malady, and I of that malady the
prey.
VASHTI.
To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence
began to act upon my life, and sadness, for a certain
space, was held at bay. Conceive a dell, deep-hollowed
in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist:
its turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid.
A storm or an axe makes a wide gap amongst the oak-trees;
the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks down; the sad,
cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that
beauteous sky, which till now the starved hollow never
saw.
A new creed became mine—a belief in happiness.
It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret,
and I possessed in that case, box, drawer up-stairs,
casketed with that first letter, four companions like
to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with the
same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort.
Vital comfort it seemed to me then: I read them
in after years; they were kind letters enough—pleasing
letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay,
half-tender, “by feeling touched, but
not subdued.” Time, dear reader, mellowed
them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I
first tasted their elixir, fresh from the fount so
honoured, it seemed juice of a divine vintage:
a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods
approve.
Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages
back, care to ask how I answered these letters:
whether under the dry, stinting check of Reason, or
according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
