"Mr. Yocomb, you have your daughter's testimony that I was sober this afternoon, and since that time I have enjoyed nothing stronger than milk and the odor of your old-fashioned roses. If I was in a lamentable condition in the garden, Miss Warren was the cause, and so is wholly to blame."

"Emily Warren, does thee know that thy mother Eve made trouble in a garden?"

"I've not the least intention of taking Mr. Morton out of the garden.

He may go back at once, and I have already suggested that you would give him plenty of hoeing and weeding there."

"I'm not so sure about that; I fear he'd make the same havoc in my garden that I'd make in his newspaper."

"Then you think an editor has no chance for Eden?"

"Thee had better talk to mother about that. If there's any chance for thee at all she'll give thee hope. Now, Emily Warren, we are all ready.

Sing some hymns that will give us all hope--no, sing hymns of faith."

Adah took a seat on the sofa, and glanced encouragingly at me, but I found a solitary chair by an open window, where I could look out across the valley to the burning mountain, and watch the stars come out in the darkening sky. Within I faced Miss Warren's profile and the family group.

I had not exaggerated when I told Miss Warren that I was conscious of a fine exhilaration. Sleep and rest had banished all dragged and jaded feelings. For hours my mind had been free from a sense of hurry and responsibility, which made it little better than a driving machine. In the mental leisure and quiet which I now enjoyed I had grown receptive--highly sensitive indeed--to the culminating scenes of this memorable day. Even little things and common words had a significance that I would not have noted ordinarily, and the group before me was not ordinary. Each character took form with an individuality as sharply defined as their figures in the somewhat dimly lighted room, and when I looked without into the deepening June night it seemed an obscure and n.o.ble background, making the human life within more real and attractive.

Miss Warren sat before her piano quietly for a moment, and her face grew thoughtful and earnest. It was evident that she was not about to perform some music, but that she would unite with her sincere and simple friends, Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb, in giving expression to feelings and truths that were as real to her as to them.

"How perfectly true she is!" I thought, as I noted the sweet, childlike gravity of her face. Then, in a voice that proved to be a sympathetic, pure soprano, well trained, but not at all great, she sang:

"My faith looks up to Thee."

Their faith seemed very real and definite, and I could not help feeling that it would be a cruel and terrible thing if that p.r.o.noun "Thee"

embodied no living and loving personality. The light in their faces, like that of a planet beaming on me through the open window, appeared but the inevitable reflection of a fuller, richer spiritual light that now shone full upon them.

One hymn followed another, and Reuben, who soon came in, seemed to have several favorites. Little Zillah had early asked for those she liked best, and then her head had dropped down into her mother's lap, and Miss Warren's sweet tones became her lullaby, her innocent, sleeping face making another element in a picture that was outlining itself deeply in my memory.

Adah, having found that she could not secure my attention, had fallen into something like a revery. Very possibly she was planning out the dress that she meant to "cut to suit herself," but in their repose her features became very beautiful again.

Her face to me, however, was now no more than a picture on the wall; but the face of the childlike woman that was so wise and gifted, and yet so simple and true, had for me a fascination that excited my wonder. I had seen scores of beautiful women--I lived in a city where they abounded--but I had never seen this type of face before. The truth that I had not was so vivid that it led to the thought that, like the first man, I had seen in the garden the one woman of the world, the mistress of my fate. A second later I was conscious of a sickening fear. To love such a woman, and yet not be able to win her--how could one thereafter go on with life! Beware, Richard Morton! On this quiet June evening, in this home of peace and the peaceful, and with hymns of love and faith breathed sweetly into your ears, you may be in the direst peril of your life. From this quiet hour may come the unrest of a lifetime. Then Hope whispered of better things. I said to myself, "I did not come to this place. I wandered hither, or was led hither; and to every influence of this day I shall yield myself. If some kindly Power has led me to this woman of crystal truth, I shall be the most egregious fool in the universe if I do not watch and wait for further possibilities of good."

How sweet and luminous her face seemed in contrast with the vague darkness without! More sweet and luminous would her faith be in the midst of the contradictions, obscurities, and evils of the world. The home that enshrined such a woman would be a refuge for a man's tempted soul, as well as a resting-place for his tired body.

"Sing 'Tell me the Old, Old Story,'" said Mr. Yocomb, in his warm, hearty way. Was I a profane wretch because the thought would come that if I could draw, in shy, hesitating admission, another story as old as the world it would be heavenly music?

Could it have been that it was my intent gaze and concentrated thought that made her turn suddenly to me after complying with Mr. Yocomb's request? She colored slightly as she met my eyes, but said quietly, "Mr. Morton, you have expressed no preference yet."

"I have enjoyed everything you have sung," I replied, and I quietly sustained her momentary and direct gaze.

She seemed satisfied, and smiled as she said, "Thank you, but you shall have your preference also."

"Miss Warren, you have sung some little time, and perhaps your voice is tired. Do you play Chopin's Twelfth Nocturne? That seems to me like a prayer."

"I'm glad you like that," she said, with a pleased, quick glance. "I play it every Sunday night when I am alone."

A few moments later and we were all under the spell of that exquisite melody which can fitly give expression to the deepest and tenderest feelings and most sacred aspirations of the heart.

Did I say all? I was mistaken. Adah's long lashes were drooping, her face was heavy with sleep, and it suggested flesh and blood, and flesh and blood only.

Miss Warren's eyes, in contrast, were moist, her mouth tremulous with feeling, and her face was a beautiful transparency, through which shone those traits which already made her, to me, pre-eminent among women.

I saw Mrs. Yocomb glance from one girl to the other, then close her eyes, while a strong expression of pain pa.s.sed over her face. Her lips moved, and she undoubtedly was speaking to One near to her, though so far, seemingly, from most of us.

A little later there occurred one or two exquisite movements in the prayer harmony, and I turned to note their effect on Mrs. Yocomb, and was greatly struck by her appearance. She was looking fixedly into s.p.a.ce, and her face had a.s.sumed a rapt, earnest, seeking aspect, as if she were trying to see something half hidden in the far distance. With a few rich chords the melody ceased. Mr. Yocomb glanced at his wife, then instantly folded his hands and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of reverent expectancy. Reuben did likewise. At the cessation of the music Adah opened her eyes, and by an instinct or habit seemed to know what to expect, for her face regained the quiet repose it had worn at the meeting-house in the morning.

Miss Warren turned toward Mrs. Yocomb, and sat with bowed head. For a few moments we remained in perfect silence. There was a faint flash of light, followed after an interval by a low, deep reverberation. The voices in nature seemed heavy and threatening. The sweet, gentle monotone of the woman's voice, as she began to speak, was divine in contrast. Slowly she enunciated the sentences:

"What I do, thou knowest not now: but thou shalt know hereafter."

After a pause she continued: "As the dear young friend was playing, these words were borne in upon my mind. They teach the necessity of faith. Thanks be to the G.o.d of heaven and earth, that He who spake these words is so worthy of the faith He requires! The disciple of old could not always understand his Lord; no more can we. We often shrink from that which is given in love, and grasp at that which would destroy. Though but little, weak, erring children, we would impose on the all-wise G.o.d our way, instead of meekly accepting His way. Surely, the One who speaks has a right to do what pleases His divine will. He is the sovereign One, the Lord of lords; and though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.

"But though it is a King that speaks, He does not speak as a king. He is talking to His friends; He is serving them with a humility and meekness that no sinful mortal has surpa.s.sed. He is proving, by the plain, simple teaching of actions, that we are not merely His subjects, but His brethren, His sisters; and that with Him we shall form one household of faith, one family in G.o.d. He is teaching the sin of arrogance and the folly of pride. He is proving, for all time, that serving--not being served--is G.o.d's patent of n.o.bility. We should not despise the lowliest, for none can stoop so far as He stooped."

Every few moments her low, sweet voice had, as an accompaniment, distant peals of thunder, that after every interval rolled nearer and jarred heavier among the mountains. More than once I saw Miss Warren start nervously, and glance apprehensively at the open window where I sat, and through which the lightning gleamed with increasing vividness.

Adah maintained the same utterly quiet, impa.s.sive face, and it seemed to me that she heard nothing and thought of nothing. Her eyes were open; her mind was asleep. She appeared an exquisite breathing combination of flesh and blood, and nothing more. Reuben looked at his mother with an expression of simple affection; but one felt that he did not realize very deeply what she was saying; but Mr. Yocomb's face glowed with an honest faith and strong approval.

"The Master said," continued Mrs. Yocomb, after one of the little pauses that intervened between her trains of thought, "'What I do, thou knowest not now.' There He might have stopped. Presuming is the subject that asks his king for the why and wherefore of all that he does. The king is the highest of all; and if he be a king in truth, he sees the furthest of all. It is folly for those beneath the throne to expect to see so far, or to understand why the king, in his far-reaching providence, acts in a way mysterious to them. Our King is kingly, and He sees the end from the beginning. His plans reach through eternities.

Why should He ever be asked to explain to such as we? Nevertheless, to the fishermen of Galilee, and to us, He does say, 'Thou shalt know hereafter.'

"The world is full of evil. We meet its sad mysteries on every side, in every form. It often touches us very closely--" For a moment some deep emotion choked her utterance. Involuntarily, I glanced at Adah. Her eyes were drooping a little heavily again, and her bosom rose and fell in the long, quiet breath of complete repose. Miss Warren was regarding the suffering mother with the face of a pitying angel.

"And its evils _are_ evil," resumed the sad-hearted woman, in a tone that was full of suppressed anguish; "at least, they seem so, and I don't understand them--I can't understand them, nor why they are permitted; but He has promised that good shall come out of the evil, and has said, 'Thou shalt know hereafter.' Oh, blessed hereafter! when all clouds shall have rolled away, and in the brightness of my Lord's presence every mystery that now troubles me shall be made clear. Dear Lord, I await Thine own time. Do what seemeth good in Thine own eyes;"

and she meekly folded her hands and bowed her head. For a moment or two there was the same impressive silence that fell upon us before she spoke. Then a louder and nearer peal of thunder awakened Zillah, who raised her head from her mother's lap and looked wonderingly around, as if some one had called her.

Never had I witnessed such a scene before, and I turned toward the darkness that I might hide the evidence of feelings that I could not control.

A second later I sprang to my feet, exclaiming, "Wonderful!"

Miss Warren came toward me with apprehension in her face, but I saw that she noted my moist eyes.

I hastened from the room, saying, "Come out on the lawn, all of you, for we may now witness a scene that is grand indeed."

CHAPTER XII

ONE OF NATURE'S TRAGEDIES

I had been so interested in Mrs. Yocomb's words, their effect on the little group around her, and the whole sacred mystery of the scene, that I had ceased to watch the smoking mountain, with its increasingly lurid apex. In the meantime the fire had fully reached the summit, on which stood a large dry tree, and it had become a skeleton of flame.

Through this lurid fire and smoke the full moon was rising, its silver disk discolored and partially obscured.

This scene alone, as we gathered on the piazza and lawn below it, might well have filled us with awe and wonder; but a more impressive combination was forming. Advancing from the southwest, up the star-lit sky, which the moon was brightening momentarily, was a cloud whose blackness and heaviness the vivid lightning made only the more apparent.

"I am an old man," said Mr. Yocomb, "but I never saw anything so grand as this before."

"Mother, mother," said little Zillah, "I'm afraid. Please take me upstairs and put me to bed." And the mother, to whom the scene in the heavens was a glorious manifestation of the G.o.d she loved rather than feared, denied herself of what was almost like a vision, for the sake of the child.