Читать книгу Woman As She Should Be; Or, Agnes Wiltshire - Mary E. Herbert - Страница 6

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A few select friends had assembled at Mrs. Bernard's, to celebrate Ella's birthday.

"It will not do to have a dancing-party, Mamma," said Ella, when they were making the necessary arrangements, "it will not do to have a dancing-party, or Agnes will refuse to come, and I have set my heart on having her, and I strongly suspect somebody else has done the same," glancing mischievously at her brother, who had just entered the room. "I am sure, too, I shall enjoy myself a great deal better with a few select friends, than if we had a large, gay party."

"Have it your own way, my dear," said the mother, fondly kissing her daughter's fair upturned brow; "if it pleases you, I am sure it will satisfy me."

"Thank you, dear Mamma, and now I have nothing to do but to write my invitations, and send them. But, Arthur, I declare you have not said a word; one would imagine, only I know better, that you do not feel at all interested in the matter."

"Interested, why should I, in your foolish parties? Do you not know I have something better to think of?"

"Doubtless, and you do not care in the least who accepts the invitations. Now, confess, for you may as well, that when I proposed, a few evenings ago, having a small select gathering of friends for Agnes's sake, your very eyes shone with joy, for all you did wear that provoking grave look. Confess, too, that you have thought of little else ever since. I am sure you dreamed about it last night, for you looked very smiling as you entered the breakfast room this morning."

"You are an incorrigible little rattle-brain, Ella, and, to punish you, I have a great mind to declare I will not enter your party. How would you like that?"

"I am not in the least alarmed, brother dear, that that threat will be carried into execution, for the very good and sufficient reason, that you would thus punish yourself worse than me. But if I stand talking any longer, my invitations will not be written in season, so I must defer our very edifying conversation till another opportunity,"—and, humming a favorite air, the lively girl danced gaily out of the room.

Arthur, left alone, stood for a moment musing, half amused and half vexed with his sister. He scarcely had ever mentioned Agnes's name, and yet, he could not conceal from himself that he felt an interest in her, beyond that he had ever experienced for any other woman.

"Absence is love's food," so poets say, and Arthur proved the truth of the observation. While spending his college vacations at home, he had often met with her before; and, even then, she charmed him as no other woman ever did, but when report told of her engagement to Edward Lincoln, honor forbade him any longer to cherish hopes which he had allowed to tint with their bright hues his dreams of the future.

He had shunned her society as far as possible from that time while at home, and striven, while at college and during his year's sojourn in foreign lands, to banish her image from his remembrance, and vainly imagined he had succeeded; but the flame, though it may be dimmed, was by no means quenched, and was ready, at the slightest encouragement, to burst forth with renewed vigor.

But we have digressed. Mrs. Bernard's drawing-room presented a picture of comfort and elegance as Agnes entered it on the evening of Ella's party. A few select friends were gathered there, all apparently perfectly at home, and amusing themselves without restraint, according to their diversified inclinations. Some were examining the choice engravings that lay scattered on the tables; others were standing in a group round the piano, admiring some new music which Ella had that day received; while the elder members of the party were gathered round the fireside, enjoying its cheerful blaze, and merrily discussing the events of the season. Innocent amusement seemed to be the rule of the evening, and Agnes, though she had left home unusually depressed in spirits, felt a glow of pleasure thrill through her heart as she contemplated the scene, and responded with her usual sweet, though, latterly, pensive smile, the kind greetings of her friends.

"How pale Miss Wiltshire looks to-night," observed one young lady to another who was seated at the piano as Agnes entered the apartment.

"She does, indeed, pale and sad both," was the response.

Arthur, who had overheard the remark, could not help admitting to himself its correctness, as he crossed the room to pay his respects to Agnes, and as, unobserved, he watched her closely, it was evident to him that, while with her usual unselfishness, she strove to promote the happiness of others by entering cheerfully into conversation, from the half suppressed sigh, and the shadow that at intervals stole over her face, some painful subject, very foreign from the scene around, occupied her thoughts.

"I am afraid you are not well to-night, Miss Wiltshire," he at length said, in a tone low and gentle as a woman's, for Agnes, seated on a corner of the sofa, and imagining herself unobserved by the rest of the company, had for a moment closed her eyes, as though to shut out surrounding objects, while an expression of mental anguish flitted across her features.

How precious to the aching heart is human sympathy. The words were nothing in themselves, but the tenderness of tone in which they were spoken, told plainly that it was anything but a matter of indifference to the speaker, and Agnes, blushing deeply as she met Arthur's compassionate glance, felt the conviction, darting like a ray of sunbeam through her mind, that to at least one person in the world she was dearer than aught else beside.

"I have only a slight headache," was her reply to his kind inquiry, and one which was strictly correct, for the headache was the result of mental agitation during the day.

"I shall recommend you, then, to sit quite still, while I constitute myself, for the evening, your devoted knight; and shall, therefore, remain here, ready to obey your slightest behests, be they what they may."

"I shall certainly then insist, in the first place, that others be not deprived of the pleasure of your company for my gratification. I should be selfish, indeed, if I allowed you to do so."

"Notwithstanding, here I am, and here I intend to remain until I am forced away," said Arthur, smiling as, seating himself comfortably beside her on the sofa, he drew a portfolio from the centre table, which contained some sketches taken during his recent tour, and, in pointing out the different places and relating his adventures in each, Agnes became so much interested as to forget her headache, and even the anxiety which had weighed down her mind but a short time before.

There was one picture that seemed particularly to attract her attention. It was the sketch of a small church, whose white walls peeped out from the midst of thick foliage, and whose opened doors seemed to welcome the worshippers that in every direction were seen apparently wending their way towards it.

Agnes gazed at it long and earnestly. She laid it down and took it up again, while Arthur, who could not imagine why she seemed to admire this sketch in preference to others whose artistic merits were far superior, gazed on her with some surprise.

"I see you are wondering, Mr. Bernard," she said, as she marked the inquiring expression of his countenance, "why this scene should particularly attract me. It is because it reminds me of the happiest hours of my life, for, in a church, whose situation and appearance exactly resembles this, I first learned where true bliss was to be found."

"A valuable lesson truly, Miss Wiltshire, and one which I would feel thankful if you could impart to me, for I assure you I am sadly in need of it. Dissatisfied with the world, I still see so much hypocrisy in the church—there are so many, even among those who minister in holy things, who seem by their actions wedded to the vanities which they profess to renounce, that I turn away with a feeling akin to disgust, and am almost ready to believe that the piety which characterized the first professors of Christianity has totally disappeared."

"Perhaps you have not been looking for it in the right place, Mr. Bernard. There are many whose religion consists in outward observances, while the heart is given up to its idol; but, granting there was not one in the world who was really the possessor of true religion, 'What is that to thee?' The claims of Heaven are not less binding on you, because not recognized or responded to by the multitude, for each must render an account of himself, whether the offering of the heart, the only acceptable one, has been presented, or whether we have turned coldly away from the voice of the charmer, charm it ever so wisely."

There was silence for a few moments, which was broken by an observation from Arthur.

"Do you know of whom you remind me, Miss Wiltshire? Of a distant relative of my mother's, who resided with us for a time, when I was but a boy. She was a young woman then; I, a wild, heedless boy; but her look, her smile, her very words, are indelibly impressed on my mind. What a lovely example of all Christian graces was she, for in her they seemed blended, like the exquisite tints of the rainbow, into a perfect whole. Her gentle reproof—her winning manner ever alluring us to that which was right—her unwearied endeavor to make all around her happy—these, combined with every womanly charm, made her appear, in my eyes, more than human; and when death came, much and deeply as I lamented the loss, I could scarcely wonder that Heaven had reclaimed its own."

There was a pause, and then Arthur added—"That I have not gone to the same extent in folly as others, I believe I owe to her, for when tempted, by my gay companions at college, to join them in the pleasures of sin, her look of mild entreaty seemed ever before me, deterring me from ill; and I often think, had she lived, I might to-day have been a better and more useful man."

Agnes had been an attentive listener. "I do not wonder," she said, as he ceased speaking, "that you so highly estimate woman's influence, for you have largely benefited by it; but though dead, she yet speaketh. Do you remember what Young says respecting dying friends? That they are

'Angels sent on errands full of love,

For us they sicken, and for us they die.'

We sometimes wonder at the mysterious Providence which often suddenly removes the excellent from earth; while the wicked are allowed to remain; but may it not be graciously ordered thus, to excite in us an ardent desire for that preparation which shall enable us to greet our friends on the shores of the better land. Oh, without such a hope what would life be.

'It lifts the fainting spirit up,

It brings to life the dead.'

How often should I be ready to sink in despair," and Agnes's lips quivered with emotion, "were it not that I am permitted to look forward to that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and which shall prove an abundant recompense for those 'light afflictions which are but for a moment.'"

"But you," said Arthur, half inquiringly, "are, I trust, a stranger to those afflictions.