From Jest to Earnest Part 68

"I hope for the better," said Lottie, gently.

"Yes, for the better, whatever may be the future. That Sabbath afternoon, when you led me to the One whom I was misrepresenting and wronging, cannot fail to make me, and that little bit of the world which I can reach, the better. I feel that I shall owe to you my best Christian experience and usefulness."

"And I feel that I should never have been a Christian at all if I had not met you," she said, looking gratefully up. "Whatever may be the future, as you cay, I trust G.o.d will never permit me to be again the false, selfish creature that I was when I first took your hand in seeming kindness."

"I trust that G.o.d has been leading us both," said Hemstead, gravely and thoughtfully.

Lottie again took out her watch, and said, in the low tone which we use in the presence of the dying, "Mr. Hemstead, the old year is pa.s.sing; there is but a moment left."

He uncovered his head, and, bowing reverently, said, "May G.o.d forgive us all the folly and evil of the past year, for the sake of His dear Son."

Lottie's head bowed as low and reverently as his and for several moments neither spoke.

Then he turned, and took her hand as he said: "Many have wished you a 'happy new year' before, but I can scarcely think that any one ever meant the words as I do. Miss Lottie, I would do anything, suffer anything, and give up anything, save honor and duty, to make you happy. You have often laughed at me because I carried my thoughts and feelings in my face. Therefore, you know well that I love you with all the truth and strength of which I am capable.

But I have had a great dread lest my love might eventually make you unhappy. You know what my life will be, and duty will never permit me to change."

Her answer was very different from what he expected. Almost reproachfully she asked, "Mr. Hemstead, is earthly happiness the end and aim of your life?"

"No," he said, after a moment.

"What then?"

"Usefulness, I trust,--the doing faithfully the work that G.o.d gives me."

"And must I of necessity differ from you in this respect?"

"Miss Lottie, forgive me. I am not worthy of you. But can it be possible that you are willing to share in my humble, toilsome life?

I fear you have no idea of the hards.h.i.+ps and privations involved."

"I stood by you faithfully last night in the storm, did I not?"

she said, with a shy, half-mischievous glance.

"It seems too good to be true," he said, in a low tone.

"Was there ever such a diffident, modest creature!" she said, brusquely. "Mr. Hemstead, you will never ENTER Heaven. The angels will have to pull you in."

"One angel has made a heaven of this dreary place already," he answered, seeking to draw her to him.

"Wait a moment; what do you mean, sir? I have made you no promises and given you no rights."

"But I have made you no end of promises, and given you absolute right over me. My every glance has said, 'Lottie Marsden, I am yours, body and soul, so far as a man with a conscience can be.'"

"All this counts for nothing," said Lottie, with a little impatient stamp of her foot. "I promised that dear old meddler, Uncle Dimmerly, that you, in deep humility and penitence for having arrogantly a.s.sumed that you could be a missionary and I couldn't, should ask me to be a home missionary; and you have wasted lots of precious time."

He caught her quaint humor, and, taking her hand and dropping on one knee, said: "Lottie Marsden, child of luxury, the prize which the proudest covet, will you leave your elegant home,--will you turn your back upon the world which is at your feet,--and go with me away to the far West, that you may become a poor, forlorn home missionary?"

"Yes, Frank, in your home; but never forlorn while I have you to laugh at, and never poor while I possess your big, unworldly heart."

"Have I any rights now?" he exclaimed; and, springing up, he exercised them to a degree that almost took away her breath.

"Here, behave yourself," she said. "The idea of one who had plumed himself on his heroic self-sacrifice acting so like an ordinary mortal! You have had more kisses now than you ought in a week. If we are to be so poor, we ought to begin practising economy at once."

"You are the most beautiful and spicy compound that nature ever fas.h.i.+oned," he exultingly replied, holding her off, devouring her with his eyes. "I plainly foresee that you can fill the poorest little home with light and music."

"Yes, I warn you, before it's too late, that I can never become a solemn, ghostly sort of a missionary."

"O, it's too late now, I a.s.sure you," he said: "my mind is made up."

"So is mine,--that you shall take a long nap, while I mount guard."

"Nap, indeed!" he said, indignantly. "When the gates of pearl bang after one with their musical clangor, and shut out forever the misery of earth, will one's first impulse on the threshold of heaven be to take a nap?"

"What extravagant language! You ministers talk much too familiarly of heaven, and such things."

"No, indeed, Lottie, dear! the more familiar the thought of heaven is to us, the better. You shall have a good home there, if a very humble one here. But do you realize how much you are giving up?"

"Yes," she said, ruefully, "the worst heartache I ever had. I don't believe you felt half so badly as I did."

"But when the hard and prosaic life comes, with its daily cares and weary burdens, are you sure that you will not regret your action?--are you sure that you will not wish yourself again the queenly belle, with the world at your feet?"

"Who with right claims the higher rank," Lottie answered, her lovely face growing n.o.ble with her thought,--"a queenly belle with a false, selfish heart, or a Christian woman? And what is that world which you say is at my feet? Where is it to-night? Where was it when the tempest made it doubtful whether we should ever see this new year? Here I am in the solemn midnight, and upon this desolate mountain. It is not the softness of a summer night to which we are exposed; it is midwinter. And yet I am certain that there is not a queen on the earth as happy as I am. But what part has that world to which you refer had in making me happy? I knew there was danger last night. I had read of people peris.h.i.+ng in the snow almost at their own doors. I think I realized that death might be near, but my heart was so light and happy in the consciousness of your love and G.o.d's love, that I could look at the grim old fellow, and laugh in his face. But suppose that I had had nothing better then to think of than this vague world, about which you are making so much ado? Once before, when the world was at my feet, as you term it, I faced a sudden danger in your company. Thanks to G.o.d's mercy and your skill and strength, we were not dashed down into that ravine when the horses ran away. What did the world do for me then? Did it throw a ray of light into that black gulf of death, which yawned on every side? Oh, thank G.o.d," she said with pa.s.sionate earnestness, "that I was not sent out of life that night, a s.h.i.+vering ghost, a homeless wanderer forever! But what could the world do to prevent it? I know all about that glittering world, Frank, to gain which so many are staking their all, and I know it's more of a phantom than a reality. It flattered me, excited and intoxicated me, but it never made me one-hundredth part as happy as I am tonight. And when I thought I had lost your respect and your love, I no more thought of turning to the world for solace and happiness, than I would look in a coal-bin for diamonds. I knew all about the world, and in the depths of my soul realized that it was a sham. How far away it is to-night, with these solemn mountains rising all around us; and yet how near seem G.o.d and heaven, and how sweet and satisfying the hopes they impart! I have thought it all out, Frank. The time is coming when illness or age, mortal pain and weakness, will shut me away, like these dark, wintry hills, even from your love,--much more from the uncaring, heartless world; but something in my heart tells me that my Saviour, who wept for sympathy when no one else would weep, will be my strong, faithful friend through it all, and not for all the worlds glittering there in yonder sky, much less for ray poor little gilt and tinsel world in New York, will I give up this a.s.surance."

"I am satisfied," said Hemstead, in a tone of deep content; "G.o.d wills it."

They sat for a long time without speaking, in the unison of feeling that needed no words.

At last, in sudden transition to one of her mirthful, piquant expressions, Lottie turned to her companion and said: "Frank, you are on the mountain-top of exalted thought and sentiment: Your face is as rapt as if you saw a vision."

"Can you wonder?"

"Well, I'm going to give you an awful tumble,--worse than the one you feared last night when the sleigh tipped. I'm hungry as any wolf that ever howled in these mountains."

"What a comparison!" said the student, laughing heartily. Then, his face becoming all solicitude, he queried, "What shall I do?"

and he was about to rise with the impression that he ought to do something.

"Do as I bid you, of course; sit still while I tell you what I shall do. I shall patiently endure this aching void, as I trust I shall the other inevitable ills of our lot. What could be more appropriate than this prelude of hunger in one proposing to marry a home missionary?"

With an odd blending of delight and sympathy in his face, Hemstead exclaimed: "Lottie! You have received more compliments than you could count in a year, but I am going to give you one different from any that you ever had before. There's not even a trace of morbidness in your nature."

Thus, in playful and serious talk, they pa.s.sed the hours until the snow-clad mountains were sparkling in the rising sun. Hemstead placed upon Lottie's hand a plain seal-ring that had been his father's, but she covered it with her glove, not wis.h.i.+ng the fact of her engagement to transpire until they should reach home.

At last the others awoke, and what they had pa.s.sed through seemed like a grotesque, horrible dream. De Forrest looked suspiciously at Hemstead and Lottie, but could gather nothing from their quiet bearing towards each other.

Early in the day relief reached them, and by the middle of the forenoon they were doing ample justice to Mrs. Marchmont's sumptuous breakfast.

Then the telltale ring on Lottie's finger revealed the secret, and there was consternation. But poor De Forrest was so outrageously hungry that he had to eat even in this most trying emergency. And yet he had a painful sense that it was not the proper thing to do under the circ.u.mstances, and so was exceedingly awkward, for once in his life.

Mr. Dimmerly chuckled all that Sunday with "unbecoming levity,"