"Oh!" was Helena's only response. She was puzzled and pained to find the world not all like the sweet and holy atmosphere of her own home. But she felt sure that Mr. Laurence's life was a great exception to the rule, which must be peace, harmony and purity in the domestic relations.

As the two girls stood in the pale blue bower which was Dolores's apartment, disrobing for the night, Helena noticed a photograph alb.u.m lying near at hand. "May I look at the pictures?" she asked, and as she turned the leaves, she uttered an exclamation of delight as her eyes fell on the photograph of a beautiful child, a boy seemingly four or five years old.

"Oh, Dolores, what a cherub! who is this?" she asked. "He is a perfect beauty--and he has your lovely mouth too--is he a relative?"

Dolores leaned over her shoulder and looked at the portrait.

"That? Oh, that is my father's little boy," she said indifferently. "The picture was sent me from California several years ago."

"But I thought you told me you had no brothers or sisters," said Helena, with a puzzled look.

Dolores ran her slender fingers through her silken hair, shaking it down about her like a golden halo.

"Well, I have none," she replied. "I am my mother's only child. He is my father's child, and one is not very much related to one's father any way, you know--and surely not at all to his children by another mother."

"Why, Dolores King!" cried Helena, now thoroughly shocked. "What strange things you are saying! Not related to one's father? Why, it is just as near and sacred a relation as that of a mother."

"Oh, no! child," interrupted Dolores. "Just think what a mother suffers for us, endures for us, goes through for us, from first to last. From the moment we begin to exist, until we can walk alone, we are a physical drain upon our mothers: while our fathers walk free and untrammeled, with only perhaps (and perhaps not even that) the thought of our maintenance to remind them that we have claims upon them. It is only a matter of a.s.sociation and personal pride, which endears most children to their fathers, while their mothers love them naturally. I have never lived with my father, since I was a small infant. I was placed in the care of a nurse, after my mother died, and then my father married again very soon, and my uncle took me home. I am sure my father has no affection for me, and I have none for him. I have seen him but a few times in my life, and I found him in no way attractive to me--and then I always remember how unhappy my mother's brief life was with him, and that makes me almost hate him. So, I am glad we do not meet oftener."

"Oh, Dolores," sighed Helena, looking at her beautiful companion with eyes of absolute compa.s.sion, "I think it is terrible for you to feel like this towards your own father. I cannot understand it."

"Well," confessed Dolores, pausing in the tasks of brushing her hair, and looking, in her dainty white robes, as Aphrodite clothed in mist might have looked had she risen from the sea with an ivory hair brush in her hand; "well, sometimes I cannot understand it either. But I once saw a girl with a queer mark on her brow, like the gash of a dagger; and I was told that it was caused by her father being struck down by a robber, right before her mother's eyes. And when I read my mother's diary, kept during her one year of married life, I think may be I was marked mentally, just that way. I suppose such a thing is possible; and I can no more help my feelings than the girl could help having the mark on her brow."

Dolores had struck a deeper truth than she imagined. But Helena's mind was not able to grasp it. She only felt that her friend was more and more of an enigma, and crept into bed with her brain in a state of chaotic confusion, bordering upon fear.

CHAPTER IV.

A STARTLING VALEDICTORY.

While the household slumbered a pale messenger entered silently and said to one of its members, "This night thy soul is required of thee! Come with me."

Mr. Laurence was found dead in his bed in the morning, a smile, warmer than his living features had worn for years, frozen upon his lips.

For those who have witnessed the ghastly spectacle of a modern funeral, no description of that barbarous rite is necessary. Who has not seen it all--the darkened room, stifling with its mingled odors of flowers and disinfectants; the sombre, hideous casket; the awful ceremony of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the lid over the beloved face: the black army of pall-bearers: the long, slow, mournful journey to the desolate, disease-breeding cemetery; the damp, dark, yawning pit, the lowered coffin, the sickening thud of the earth as dust returns to dust. Oh!

could the most savage race invest death with more terrors than this frightful custom of the civilized world? Then follows the long process of decay, the darkness, the gloom, the weight of the earth upon that dear breast, the grave-worm slowly eating his slimy way into the flesh which has thrilled under our warm kisses--G.o.d! are we not cruel to our dead?

Compare with this the beautiful ceremony of cremation. A snowy cloth envelopes the dead. A door swings open noiselessly, and the iron cradle, with its burden clothed as for the nuptial bed, rolls through the aperture and disappears in a glory of crimson light, as a dove sails into the summer sunset skies and is lost to view. There is no smoke, no flame, no odor of any kind. Nothing comes in contact with the precious form we have loved, but the purity of intense heat, and the splendor of great light. In a few hours, swiftly, noiselessly, with no repulsive or ghastly features in the process, the earthly part of our dear one is reduced to a small heap of snowy ashes. All hail the dawn of a newer and higher civilization, which shall subst.i.tute the cleanliness and simplicity of cremation for the complicated and dreadful horrors of burial!

By Mr. Laurence's will it was discovered that his entire property, amounting to a comfortable competence, belonged to Dolores, with the exception of the homestead: This was to pa.s.s into the hands of Dr.

Monroe, his family physician and only intimate acquaintance. Friends offered the shelter of their homes to Dolores, and urged her to accept their sympathetic hospitality until her future plans were formed. But the sorrowing orphan refused to leave the thrice gloomy house. She clung to Helena, and said, between her sobs, "They tell me I must go away from here soon, forever: that it is no longer my home. Surely, I may remain a little while--a few weeks, and surely you will stay with me, Helena? I cannot leave it all so suddenly--it is too much to ask of me."

Finally it was decided that Dr. and Mrs. Monroe should take immediate charge of their new home, and that Helena should remain with her friend until her preparations were completed for a final departure.

Then together they would return to Madame Scranton's to remain until the June vacation, when Dolores would receive her diploma as a "finished"

young lady.

One day Dolores asked Helena to a.s.sist her in selecting and packing the books she wished to take from her uncle's library. According to his will, she was to retain such portion of his collection as she most valued.

"All those on the second and lower shelves you may take down," she said.

"They are my favorites--they have helped to form my mind and principles, and they seem like personal friends to me--and far more reliable than most people."

Helena read the t.i.tles of the books as she dusted them off and placed them in the packing boxes.

There were all the works of Chas. Fourier, Histories of all the Communistic Societies of ancient and modern times; all of George Sand's Works, Voltaire, Sh.e.l.ley, his life and works; Life of Mary Wollstonecraft, and her "Vindication of the Rights of Women;"

Onderdonk's "Marriage prohibited by the Laws of G.o.d;" Balzac's "Petty Annoyances of Married Life;" "Disadvantages of the Married State,"--an antique book bearing the date of 1761; works by Mitch.e.l.l and J. Johnson on the same subject; and many others by obscure authors. With the exception of a few, they were nearly all books of which Helena had never even heard. She glanced through the pages of Fourier, and sighed.

"Dear me!" she said, "how very much deeper your mind is than my own, Dolores. I could never in the world read such books as those; I could never become interested in them. I do not think I ever knew another person so wise as you are--for your age."

"I take no credit to myself," Dolores answered; "it is all the result of my Uncle's training. 'As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.' And yet I think my Mother's diary prepared me for this train of thought as nothing else could have done. Some day, Lena, I shall show you that diary; and then you will better comprehend me, and my ideas. But not yet; your mind is too child-like to grasp such sad truths. And still, I think they can scarcely be brought to our knowledge too soon."

Helena's curiosity was aroused, and her first impulse was to ask Dolores for the diary, or at least to urge her to reveal something of the nature of its contents. But a second thought caused her to respond in an entirely different way.

"I should wish to have my Mother read the diary first," she said, "if it contains any information on matters of which I am now ignorant. I am sure she would be the best judge, whether or not I need such instruction. She has always told me to come first to her for explanation of any thing which surprised or puzzled me. I am sure she would not approve if I disobeyed her in this instance."

"You are quite right, Lena," her friend answered, with a sense of having been quietly rebuked. "I know I have talked too freely with you on this matter; I have excited your curiosity, and to no good result. But somehow, I talk to you more unreservedly than I ever conversed with any one else. I don't know why; I have always prided myself on my reticence--yet your sweet sympathy seems to destroy my caution. I respect your delicate idea of what is due your mother, and I will not thrust my heart's convictions upon you again, dear."

Still, it was owing to Helena's own sense of honor, that Dolores had not startled and shocked her young and perfectly innocent mind, by unfolding unlovely facts, and rude truths, for which she was totally unprepared.

Yet, Madame Scranton had a.s.sured Mrs. Maxon, that Miss King was an admirable companion for her young daughter. So poorly does the most careful preceptor, as a rule, understand the complex natures in her care, and so little does the most prudent parent realize the dangers to which she exposes her daughter in these boarding-school intimacies.

It seemed to Helena, that she was years older, and sadder, when, at the expiration of three weeks, she accompanied Dolores back to Madame Scranton's Academy.

The sudden death of Mr. Laurence, upon the very night of her arrival, the gloom of the succeeding days, the heart-breaking sorrow of Dolores, as she bade a last adieu to the old house, and went forth homeless, though an heiress, all served to sadden and depress Helena's usually buoyant spirits.

"I am glad I went home with Dolores," she wrote to her mother, "both because the poor girl needed me in her time of trouble, and because it has made me more than ever grateful to heaven for the blessings of my dear parents, and my happy home. Poor Dolores! she has a fortune, and great personal beauty, and a wonderfully deep mind; you would be surprised, Mamma, to see the books that girl has read. But she has no home, no mother, and my heart aches for her. For some strange reason, she seems to feel a repugnance, that is almost hatred, towards her father, who is living, you know. She says, when I read her mother's diary, that I will understand her better. She puzzles me very much, she says such strange things. But I am very fond of her, Mamma, and I want you to invite her to come home with me, after she graduates. Just think! she has no place on earth she can call home. Is it not a terribly sad situation for a girl like her?" So it was decided that Dolores should accompany her friend to Elm Hill, at the close of the term.

Perhaps Mrs. Maxon might have hesitated, in writing the sweet motherly letter of invitation which she sent to Dolores, if she had seen the ma.n.u.script upon which that young lady was hard at work: the ma.n.u.script of the address she was to deliver, "Commencement Day."

Mrs. Maxon was present when that day arrived. Fair girls in snowy costumes fluttered upon the stage of the a.s.sembly hall, like a shower of apple-blossoms; delivered themselves of pretty plat.i.tudes, and time-worn sentiments, in sweet treble voices: were listened to, and applauded, by proud parents and admiring friends, and made their graceful exit, no longer school-girls, but young ladies fully equipped for "Society."

All but one. She came, clothed in deepest mourning, with only a cl.u.s.ter of purple pansies to relieve the dead blackness of her garments, out of which rose like a star from midnight clouds her beautiful, pallid face, with its crown of golden hair.

Perfect silence reigned in the a.s.sembly Hall, when Dolores began speaking. Her voice was clear as the tones of a silver bell, her p.r.o.nunciation distinct and deliberate. Her theme was, "Woman, her Duties and her Dangers." In terse and finely chosen sentences, she denounced marriage as a bondage and slavery, of the most degrading type--opposed to the highest interest of Society as a whole, and of women in particular. She quoted liberally from various authors, to substantiate her a.s.sertions, and closed with an eloquent appeal to all her cla.s.smates, to avoid this dangerous pitfall; to go forth into world self-reliant and strong in their determination to make places and homes for themselves, untrammeled by indissoluble and uncongenial companionships. Although making her a.s.sertions with most startling positiveness, her choice language conveyed no offensive phrases. But the address, on the whole, was so socialistic, and its ideas so unfeminine and extreme, that it feel, if not like a bomb-sh.e.l.l, at least like a small torpedo, in that a.s.semblage of conventional maidens and matrons.

And Dolores beautiful and brilliant, and (if too reserved to be a favorite), at least the most admired and envied of her cla.s.s, retired from the platform amidst a profound silence.

Madame Scranton felt deeply mortified at the conduct of her model pupil.

She had known the t.i.tle of Dolores's address, but having such unlimited faith in that young lady's discretion, and ability, she had not deemed it necessary to inspect the ma.n.u.script. Other pupils needed her attention, and she felt confident that Miss King would deliver a masterly effort--one which would reflect credit upon herself and the Academy. Dolores invariably did well. Madame was aware, that she had contracted some severe prejudices against marriage; that she was, in fact, almost a man-hater. But these ideas would no doubt wear away, in contact with the world. She had not the slightest knowledge of their strong, tenacious hold upon Dolores's mind, until she sat in shocked surprise, and listened to her startling oration.

So soon as her duties would permit, Madame hastened to make her apologies to Mrs. Maxon.

"I fear you will distrust my judgment," she said, "in placing your daughter in close companionship with that young lady. But really, the strange outburst from Miss King is wholly unaccountable to me. I cannot understand where she contracted such ideas."

"I think I can," Mrs. Maxon answered, quietly, remembering Helena's references to her friend in her letters. "I am about to take the young lady home with me, and I hope I can rid her of some of her morbid ideas.

It is well for young ladies to make marriage a secondary, not the first consideration of life; but it is very unfortunate to view the matter through Miss King's diseased eyes. There must be some cause for her peculiar state of mind. I shall try and fathom it."