_ To Mr. Burroughs, smoking his cigar upon the piazza of the Neff
House, came a white-jacketed waiter with a card.
"The gentleman is waiting in the reception-room, sir," said he.
Mr. Burroughs paused to watch an unusually perfect ring of smoke
lazily floating above his head; then took the card, and read in
pencil,--
"Theodore Ginniss would be glad to see Mr. Burroughs a moment on
important business."
"Indeed! Well, it is a republic, and this is the West; but only
Jack's bean-stalk parallels such a growth." So said, in his own
heart, Teddy Ginniss's former master, as he drew two or three rapid
whiffs from the stump of his cigar, and then, throwing it into the
grass, strolled leisurely into the reception-room.
"Ah, Ginniss! how are you?" inquired he of the pale and nervous
young man, who stood up to receive him, half extending his hand, but
dropping it quickly upon perceiving those of Burroughs immovable.
"I am well, sir, thank you."
"Want to see me on business, do you say?" continued the lawyer
coolly.
"Yes, sir." And, as his true purpose and position came back to him,
Teddy suddenly straightened himself, and grew as cool as the stately
gentleman waiting with patient courtesy for his errand.
"I thought, sir, I'd come to you first, as it was to you I first had
occasion to speak of my fault in hiding her. 'Toinette is found,
sir!"
"What! 'Toinette Legrange found! Teddy, your hand, my boy! Found by
you?"
"Yes, sir," said Teddy, suffering his hand to be shaken.
"But what I wanted most was to ask if you think it safe to tell Mrs.
Legrange."
"Oh! I'll see to that. Of course, it must be done very delicately.
But where is the child now? and when did you find her?"
"If you please, Mr. Burroughs, I should like to tell the story first
to Mrs. Legrange, and I should like to tell her all myself. It was I
that hurt her, or helped to hurt her; and I'd like to be the one to
give her the great joy that's waiting for her. Besides, sir," and
Teddy's face grew white again, "though I did what was wrong enough,
I never deny, I have suffered for it more, maybe, than you can think
of; and this is all the amends I could ever want. Mrs. Legrange has
been very good to me, sir, and never blamed me, or spoke an unkind
word, even at the first."
"And I spoke a good many, you're thinking," said Mr. Burroughs
keenly. "Well, Teddy, I am a man, and Mrs. Legrange is a woman; and
women look at matters more leniently and less exactly than we do.
But you must not be satisfied with pity instead of justice; for that
will be to encourage your self-esteem at the expense of your
manhood. I do not deny that I never have recovered from my surprise
at finding you had so long deceived me; but the news you bring to--
day makes amends for much: and, after I have heard the particulars,
I may yet be able to forget the past, and feel to you as I used."
But Teddy's bow, though respectful, was not humble; and he only
asked in reply,--
"Where shall I find Mrs. Legrange, sir?"
"She walked down to the glen about half an hour ago. You may follow
her there, if you please; and, since you insist upon it as a right,
I will leave you to break the news to her alone. But you will
remember, I hope, that she is very delicate,--very easily startled.
You will have to be exceedingly cautious."
"Yes, sir;" and with a ceremonious bow the young man left the room,
and the next minute was seen darting along the path to the glen.
Mr. Burroughs looked after him appreciatively, and muttered,--
"A nice-looking fellow, and not without self-respect. I see no
reason why, in half a dozen years, he should not enter his name at
the Suffolk bar itself, and stand as well as any man on the roll.
But my little Sunshine! Confound the boy! why couldn't he have told
me where to find her?"
So Mr. Burroughs went back to the piazza, and tried to quiet himself
with another cigar, but was too nervous to make any more rings;
while Teddy sped away to the glen, and presently found himself in a
cool and cavernous retreat, which the sunlight only penetrated by
dancing down with the waters that slid laughingly over a rock ledge
above, and shook themselves into spray before they reached the pool
below, then, after dimpling and sporting there for a moment, danced
merrily away. At either hand, high walls of rock, half hid in
trailing vines and clinging herbage, shut out the heat of day; and,
through a thousand ever-changing peepholes among the swaying
foliage, the blue sky looked gayly down, and challenged those who
hid in the glen to come forth, and dare the fervor of the mid-day
sun.
Under a tree near the foot of the fall sat Mrs. Legrange, her head
leaning upon her hand, her book idle upon her lap, watching dreamily
the waters that swayed and ebbed, and paused and coquetted with
every flower or leaf that bent toward them; and yet in the end went
on, always on, as the idlest of us go, until through the merry
brook, the heedless fall, the sparkling stream, and stately river,
we reach at last the ocean, calm, changeless, and eternal in its
unmoved depths.
The lady looked up with a little start as she heard the approaching
footsteps, and then rose with extended hand,--
"Theodore!" said she kindly. "I am very glad to see you; and so
grown! You are much taller than in the spring."
"Yes, ma'am: I believe so. I don't think I shall grow much more,"
said Teddy, swallowing a great bunch in his throat that almost
suffocated him.
"No? Why, you are not so very old, are you?" asked Mrs. Legrange,
smiling a little.
"Nearly eighteen, ma'am."
"Oh, well! time enough for a good deal of growth, bodily and mental,
yet. So you have been at the West?"
"Yes, ma'am, and have heard some curious things there,--some things
that I think will interest you. Have you ever thought of adopting a
little girl, ma'am?"
Mrs. Legrange sadly shook her head.
"No, Theodore: I never wished to do that. She never could be any
thing like her to me, and it would seem like giving away her place.
I had rather wait."
"I am sorry, ma'am; for I saw a little girl, where I have been, that
I was going to speak of."
"Was she a pretty child?"
"Very pretty, and looked like"--
"Theodore, don't say that, because I shall think either you have
forgotten or never learned her face. No child ever looked like her,"
said the mother positively.
"This little girl was very pretty though," persisted Teddy.
"How did she look?"
"She had great blue eyes (if you'll excuse, me, ma'am), just like
yours, with long brown eyelashes, and a great deal of bright hair,
not just brown, nor yet just golden, but between the two; and a
little mouth very much curved; and pretty teeth; and a delicate
color; and little hands with pretty finger-nails."
"Theodore!"
Teddy, for the first time in his description, dared to raise his
eyes, but dropped them again. He could not meet the anguish in those
other eyes so earnestly fixed upon him.
"She was the adopted child of the people I visited in Iowa,"
faltered he.
"Theodore!" said Mrs. Legrange again; and then, in a breathless
fluttering voice,--
"Do not trifle with me; do not try to prepare my mind; and, oh! For
God's sake, if it is a false hope, say so this instant! Is she
found?"
"I think it may be so, dear Mrs. Legrange!"
"No, but it is so! you know it! I see it in your eyes, I hear it in
your voice! You cannot hide it, you cannot deceive me! O my God! my
God!-to thee the first praise, the first thanks!"
She fell upon her knees, her face upraised to heaven; and never
mortal artist drew such a picture of ecstatic praise. And though in
after-years Theodore Ginniss wandered through the galleries where
the world conserves her rarest gems of art, never did he find
Madonna or Magdalen or saint to compare with the one picture his
memory treasured as the perfection of earthly loveliness, made
radiant with the purest heavenly bliss.
"Now come!" exclaimed the mother, springing to her feet, and rapidly
leading the way along the narrow path. "You shall tell me all as we
go."
And the young man found it hard work to keep pace with the delicate
woman, as she flew rather than walked towards her child.
"If you will wait here in your own room, I will bring her to you,"
said Teddy, as he and Mrs. Legrange approached the hotel again.
"Bring her! Where is she now? asked the mother, looking at him in
dismay.
"I left them at the other hotel, thinking, if I brought her directly
here, we might meet you before you were told," explained Teddy.
"Who is with her?"
"Dora Darling, the young lady who adopted her,--the one I told you of
as living in Iowa."
"Yes, yes; and she has come all the way to bring my child to me! No,
I cannot wait: I will come with you."
So Mr. Burroughs, still sitting upon the piazza, saw his cousin
hastening by, and came to join her.
"Yes, come, Tom! come to-oh, to see Sunshine again!" and Mrs.
Legrange turned her flushed face away, to hide the hysterical
agitation she could not quite suppress.
"Take my arm, Fanny; and do not walk so fast. You will hurt
yourself," said Mr. Burroughs kindly.
"No, no: nothing can hurt me now. I must go fast: if I had wings, I
should fly!"
"Here is the house. Will you wait in the parlor till I bring her
down?" asked Teddy, leading the way up the steps of the principal
hotel at Yellow Springs.
"No: take me to the room where they are waiting. I want to see her
without preparation," said Mrs. Legrange.
So the whole party followed Teddy up the stairs to a door, where he
paused and knocked. A low voice said,--
"Come in!" and the opening door showed Dora seated upon a low chair,
with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and fast asleep. She made a
motion to rise upon seeing the visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting
her finger as imploring silence softly advanced, and bent with
clasped hands and eager eyes over the sleeping child. Then, with the
graceful instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in the
heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about Dora and
the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips lightly upon Dora's
cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine's lips.
Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden tremor crossed
the rigid calm of her demeanor. She had schooled herself to
indifference, to neglect or to civil thanks worse than either: but
this unexpected tenderness, this sisterly recognition, went straight
through all its defences to her quivering heart; and she looked up
piteously into the lovely face bent over her, whispering,--
"I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing left half so
dear."
There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or movement,
suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon her mother's face,
while deep in their blue depths grew a glad smile, breaking at last,
like a veritable sungleam, all over her face, as, holding out her
arms, she eagerly said,--
"I've come to heaven while I was asleep; and you're the angel that
loves me so dearly well. I know you by your eyes."
"The mother clasped her own,--as who shall blame her?-and Dora's arms
and Dora's heart were empty, robbed of the nestling they had
cherished,--empty, as she said to herself, turning from the sight of
that maternal bliss, of the best love she had ever known, or could
ever hope."
Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched her narrowly;
and when, presently, the whole party returned to Mrs. Legrange's
hotel, he quietly walked beside Dora, lingering a little, and
detaining her out of hearing of Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked
on with Sunshine between them.
"Is virtue its own reward, Miss Dora?" asked he abruptly, when
almost half the distance between the two hotels was passed.
Dora looked at him a little puzzled; and then, as she read the
half-sympathizing, half-mocking expression of his face, answered,--
"You mean I am not happy in bringing Sunshine back to her mother;
don't you?"
"Exactly; and you told me once that no one ought to be rewarded for
doing what is right, because it is reward enough to know that we are
doing right."
"And so it is. I don't want any reward," said Dora rather hastily.
"No: but, if young Ginniss had not discovered the identity of the
child, my cousin would not have been unhappier than she has been for
two years; and you-would you not be at this moment better content
with life?"
Dora's clear eyes looked straight into his as she wonderingly
asked,--
"Do you want me to say I am sorry Mrs. Legrange has found her
child?"
"If it is true, yes; and I know you will," replied Mr. Burroughs
quietly.
"And so I would," said Dora, in the same tone; "but it is not true.
I am glad, not happy, but very glad, that Sunshine has come to her
mother at last,--her heaven, as she calls it. I do not deny that my
own heart is very sore, and that I cannot yet think of her not being
my child any more, without"--
She turned away her head, and Mr. Burroughs looked at her yet more
attentively than he had been looking.
"But, if you could, you would not go back, and arrange it that Teddy
should not come to your house? Word and honor now, Dora."
"Word and honor, Mr. Burroughs, I surely would not. Can you doubt
me?"
"No, Dora, I do not; but, in your place, I should doubt myself."
Dora looked at him with a frank smile.
"I would trust you in this place, or any other," said she simply.
"Would you, would you really, Dora?" asked Tom Burroughs eagerly,
while a slight color flashed into his handsome face. "Why would
you?"
"Because I feel sure you could never do any thing mean or
ungenerous, or feel any way but nobly"--
She paused suddenly, and a tide of crimson suffused her face and
neck. Mr. Burroughs, with the heroism of perfect breeding, turned
away his eyes, and suppressed the enthusiastic answer that had risen
to his lips. He would not add to her confusion by accepting as
extraordinary the impulsive expression of her feelings. So he simply
said, after a moment of silence,--
"Thank you, Dora. I hope you may never have occasion to regret your
noble confidence."
Dora did not answer, but hastened her steps, until she walked close
behind Mrs. Legrange; nor did her companion speak again, although,
could Dora have read his thoughts, she might have found in them
matter of more interest than any words he had ever spoken to her. _