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THE OAK.
In the morning, as she narrated the events of the evening, she
told her aunt of the acquaintance she had made, and that he had
seen her home. This information did not please the old lady, as,
indeed, without knowing any reason, Letty had expected. Mrs.
Wardour knew all about Tom's mother, or thought she did, and knew
little good; she knew also that, although her son was a general
favorite, her own son had a very poor opinion of him. On these
grounds, and without a thought of injustice to Letty, she sharply
rebuked the poor girl for allowing such a fellow to pay her any
attention, and declared that, if ever she permitted him so much
as to speak to her again, she would do something which she left
in a cloud of vaguest suggestion.
Letty made no reply. She was hurt. Nor was it any wonder if she
judged this judgment of Tom by the injustice of the judge to
herself. It was of no consequence to her, she said to herself,
whether she spoke to him again or not; but had any one the right
to compel another to behave rudely? Only what did it matter,
since there was so little chance of her ever seeing him again!
All day she felt weary and disappointed, and, after the
merrymaking of the night before, the household work was irksome.
But she would soon have got over both weariness and tedium had
her aunt been kind. It is true, she did not again refer to Tom,
taking it for granted that he was done with; but all day she kept
driving Letty from one thing to another, nor was once satisfied
with anything she did, called her even an ungrateful girl, and,
before evening, had rendered her more tired, mortified, and
dispirited, than she had ever been in her life.
But the tormentor was no demon; she was only doing what all of us
have often done, and ought to be heartily ashamed of: she was
only emptying her fountain of bitter water. Oppressed with the
dregs of her headache, wretched because of her son's absence, who
had not been a night from home for years, annoyed that she had
spent time and money in preparation for nothing, she had allowed
the said cistern to fill to overflowing, and upon Letty it
overflowed like a small deluge. Like some of the rest of us, she
never reflected how balefully her evil mood might operate; and
that all things work for good in the end, will not cover those by
whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is true, sent
the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not exorcise it;
for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a bad
temper is one of them--a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited,
and unjust, as any in the peerage of hell--much petted,
nevertheless, and excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed
by him. Mrs. Wardour was a lady, as the ladies of this world go,
but a poor lady for the kingdom of heaven: I should wonder much
if she ranked as more than a very common woman there.
The next day all was quiet; and a visit paid Mrs. Wardour by a
favorite sister whom she had not seen for months, set Letty at
such liberty as she seldom had. In the afternoon she took the
book Godfrey had given her, in which he had set her one of
Milton's smaller poems to study, and sought the shadow of the
Durnmelling oak.
It was a lovely autumn day, the sun glorious as ever in the
memory of Abraham, or the author of Job, or the builder of the
scaled pyramid at Sakkara. But there was a keenness in the air
notwithstanding, which made Letty feel a little sad without
knowing why, as she seated herself to the task Cousin Godfrey had
set her. She, as well as his mother, heartily wished he were
home. She was afraid of him, it is true; but in how different a
way from that in which she was afraid of his mother! His absence
did not make her feel free, and to escape from his mother was
sometimes the whole desire of her day.
She was trying hard, not altogether successfully, to fix her
attention on her task, when a yellow leaf dropped on the very
line she was poring over. Thinking how soon the trees would be
bare once more, she brushed the leaf away, and resumed her
lesson.
"To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,"
she had just read once more, when down fell a second tree-leaf on
the book-leaf. Again she brushed it away, and read to the end of
the sonnet:
"Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure."
What Letty's thoughts about the sonnet were, I can not tell: how
fix thought indefinite in words defined? But her angel might well
have thought what a weary road she had to walk before she gained
that entrance. But for all of us the road has to be
walked, every step, and the uttermost farthing paid. The gate
will open wide to welcome us, but it will not come to meet us.
Neither is it any use to turn aside; it only makes the road
longer and harder.
Down on the same spot fell the third leaf. Letty looked up. There
was a man in the tree over her head. She started to her feet. At
the same moment, he dropped on the ground beside her, lifting his
hat as coolly as if he had met her on the road. Her heart seemed
to stand still with fright. She stood silent, with white lips
parted.
"I hope I haven't frightened you," said Tom. "Do forgive me," he
added, becoming more aware of the perturbation he had caused her.
"You were so kind to me the other night, I could not help wanting
to see you again. I had no idea the sight of me would terrify you
so."
"You gave me such a start!" gasped Letty, with her hand pressed
on her heart.
"I was afraid of it," answered Tom; "but what could I do? I was
certain, if you saw me coming, you would run away."
"Why should you think that?" asked Letty, a faint color rising in
her cheek.
"Because," answered Tom, "I was sure they would be telling you
all manner of things against me. But there is no harm in me--
really, Miss Lovel--nothing, that is, worth mentioning."
"I am sure there isn't," said Letty; and then there was a pause.
"What book are you reading, may I ask?" said Tom.
Letty had now remembered her aunt's injunctions and threats; but,
partly from a kind of paralysis caused by his coolness, partly
from its being impossible to her nature to be curt with any one
with whom she was not angry, partly from mere lack of presence of
mind, not knowing what to do, yet feeling she ought to run to the
house, what should she do but drop down again on the very spot
whence she had been scared! Instantly Tom threw himself on the
grass at her feet, and there lay, looking up at her with eyes of
humble admiration.
Confused and troubled, she began to turn over the leaves of her
book. She supposed afterward she must have asked him why he
stared at her so, for the next thing she remembered was hearing
him say:
"I can't help it. You are so lovely!"
"Please don't talk such nonsense to me," she rejoined. "I am not
lovely, and I know it. What is not true can not please anybody."
She spoke a little angrily now.
"I speak the truth," said Tom, quietly and earnestly. "Why should
you think I do not?"
"Because nobody ever said so before."
"Then it is quite time somebody should say so," returned Tom,
changing his tone. "It may be a painful fact, but even ladies
ought to be told the truth, and learn to bear it. To say you are
not lovely would be a downright lie."
"I wish you wouldn't talk to me about myself!" said Letty,
feeling confused and improper, but not altogether displeased that
it was possible for such a mistake to be made. "I don't want to
hear about myself. It makes me so uncomfortable! I am sure it
isn't right: is it, now, Mr. Helmer?"
As she ended, the tears rose in her eyes, partly from unanalyzed
uneasiness at the position in which she found herself and the
turn the talk had taken, partly from the discomfort of conscious
disobedience. But still she did not move.
"I am very sorry if I have vexed you," said Tom, seeing her
evident trouble. "I can't think how I've done it. I know I didn't
mean to; and I promise you not to say a word of the kind again--
if I can help it. But tell me, Letty," he went on again, changing
in tone and look and manner, and calling her by her name with
such simplicity that she never even noticed it, "do tell me what
you are reading, and that will keep me from talking about
you--not from--the other thing, you know."
"There!" said Letty, almost crossly, handing him her book, and
pointing to the sonnet, as she rose to go.
Tom took the book, and sprang to his feet. He had never read the
poem, for Milton had not been one of his masters. He stood
devouring it. He was doing his best to lay hold of it quickly,
for there Letty stood, with her hand held out to take the book
again, ready upon its restoration to go at once. Silent and
motionless, to all appearance unhasting, he read and reread.
Letty was restless, and growing quite impatient; but still Tom
read, a smile slow-spreading from his eyes over his face; he was
taking possession of the poem, he would have said. But the shades
and kinds and degrees of possession are innumerable; and not
until we downright love a thing, can we know we understand
it, or rightly call it our own; Tom only admired this one; it was
all he was capable of in regard to such at present. Had the whim
for acquainting himself with it seized him in his own study, he
would have satisfied it with a far more superficial interview;
but the presence of the girl, with those eyes fixed on him as he
read--his mind's eye saw them--was for the moment an enlargement
of his being, whose phase to himself was a consciousness of
ignorance.
"It is a beautiful poem," he said at last, quite honestly; and,
raising his eyes, he looked straight in hers. There is hardly a
limit to the knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of
the finest things, and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A
man may be a poet even, and speak with the tongue of an angel,
and yet be a very bad fool.
"I am sure it must be a beautiful poem," said Letty; "but I have
hardly got a hold of it yet." And she stretched her hand a little
farther, as if to proceed with its appropriation.
But Tom was not yet prepared to part with the book. He proceeded
instead, in fluent speech and not inappropriate language, to set
forth, not the power of the poem--that he both took and left as a
matter of course--but the beauty of those phrases, and the turns
of those expressions, which particularly pleased him--nor failing
to remark that, according to the strict laws of English verse,
there was in it one bad rhyme.
That point Letty begged him to explain, thus leading Tom to an
exposition of the laws of rhyme, in which, as far as English was
concerned, he happened to be something of an expert, partly from
an early habit of scribbling in ladies' albums. About these
surface affairs, Godfrey, understanding them better and valuing
them more than Tom, had yet taught Letty nothing, judging it
premature to teach polishing before carving; and hence this
little display of knowledge on the part of Tom impressed Letty
more than was adequate--so much, indeed, that she began to regard
him as a sage, and a compeer of her cousin Godfrey. Question
followed question, and answer followed answer, Letty feeling all
the time she must go, yet standing and standing, like one
in a dream, who thinks he can not, and certainly does not break
its spell--for in the act only is the ability and the deed born.
Besides, was she to go away and leave her beautiful book in his
hand? What would Godfrey think if she did? Again and again she
stretched out her own to take it, but, although he saw the
motion, he held on to the book as to his best anchor, hurriedly
turned its leaves by fits and searching for something more to his
mind than anything of Milton's. Suddenly his face brightened.
"Ah!" he said--and remained a moment silent, reading. "I don't
wonder," he resumed, "at your admiration of Milton. He's very
grand, of course, and very musical, too; but one can't be
listening to an organ always. Not that I prefer merry music; that
must be inferior, for the tone of all the beauty in the world is
sad." Much Tom Helmer knew of beauty or sadness either! but
ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his tongue. "But
there is the violin, now!--that can be as sad as any organ,
without being so ponderous. Hear this, now! This is the violin
after the organ--played as only a master can!"
With this preamble, he read a song of Shelley's, and read it
well, for he had a good ear for rhythm and cadence, and prided
himself on his reading of poetry.
Now the path to Letty's heart through her intellect was neither
open nor well trodden; but the song in question was a winged one,
and flew straight thither; there was something in the tone of it
that suited the pitch of her spirit-chamber. And, if Letty's
heart was not easily found, it was the readier to confess itself
when found. Her eyes filled with tears, and through those tears
Tom looked large and injured. "He must be a poet himself to read
poetry like that!" she said to herself, and felt thoroughly
assured that her aunt had wronged him greatly. "Some people scorn
poetry like sin," she said again. "I used myself to think it was
only for children, until Cousin Godfrey taught me differently."
As thus her thoughts went on interweaving themselves with the
music, all at once the song came to an end. Tom closed the book,
handed it to her, said, "Good morning, Miss Lovel," and ran down
the rent in the ha-ha; and, before Letty could come to herself,
she heard the soft thunder of hoofs on the grass. She ran to the
edge, and, looking over, saw Tom on his bay mare, at full gallop
across the field. She watched him as he neared the hedge and
ditch that bounded it, saw him go flying over, and lost sight of
him behind a hazel-copse. Slowly, then, she turned, and slowly
she went back to the house and up to her room, vaguely aware that
a wind had begun to blow in her atmosphere, although only the
sound of it had yet reached her.
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