"I am very glad," he added, "that this happened when your Aunt Sarah was away. It would have been a great weariness and annoyance to her to have read these letters."

Dear, courteous Uncle Jo! I respected his chivalrous little artifice of speech, and tried to look as if I believed he would have carried the letters to his wife if she had been there.

"And I think, dear," he hesitatingly proceeded, "we would better not speak of this. It will be one sacred little secret that you and your old uncle will keep. As no more letters will be found on the stairs, the whole thing will be soon forgotten."

"Oh yes, uncle," replied I; "of course it would be terrible to tell. It isn't our secret, you know; it is dear Esther Wynn's."

I do not know why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, without telling any one whither I was going, to a wild spot I knew several miles away, where a little mountain stream came foaming and dashing down through a narrow gorge to empty itself into our broad and placid river. I sat down on a mossy granite boulder, and slowly tore the letters into minutest fragments. One by one I tossed the white and tiny shreds into the swift water, and watched them as far as I could see them. The brook lifted them and tossed them over and over, lodged them in mossy crevices, or on tree roots, then swept them all up and whirled them away in dark depths of the current from which they would never more come to the surface. It was a place which Esther would have loved, and I wondered, as I sat there hour after hour, whether it were really improbable, that she knew just then what I was doing for her. I wondered, also, as I often before had wondered, if it might not have been by Esther's will that the sacred h.o.a.rd of letters, which had lain undiscovered for so many years, should fall at last into the hands of my tender and chivalrous Uncle Jo. It was certainly a strange thing that on the stormy night which I have described, when we were discussing what should be done with the letters, both Uncle Jo and I at the same instant should have fancied we heard the words "Burn, burn!"

The following letter is the earliest one which I copied. It is the one which Robert found so late at night and brought to us in the library:--

"FRIDAY EVENING.

"SWEETEST:--It is very light in my room to-night. The full moon and the thought of you! I see to write, but you would forbid me--you who would see only the moonlight, and not the other. Oh, my darling! my darling!

"I have been all day in fields and on edges of woods. I have never seen just such a day: a June sun, and a September wind; clover and b.u.t.ter-cups under foot, and a sparkling October sky overhead. I think the earth enjoyed it as a sort of masquerading frolic. The breeze was so strong that it took the b.u.t.terflies half off their air-legs, and they fairly reeled about in the sun. As for me, I sat here and there, on hillocks and stones, among ferns, and white cornels, and honey-bees, and bobolinks. I was the only still thing in the fields. I waited so long in each spot, that it was like being transplanted when I moved myself to the north or the south. And I discovered a few things in each country in which I lived. For one thing, I observed that the little busy bee is not busy all the while; that he does a great amount of aimless, idle snuffing and tasting of all sorts of things besides flowers; especially he indulges in a running accompaniment of gymnastics among the gra.s.s-stalks, which cannot possibly have anything to do with honey. I watched one fellow to-day through a series of positive trapeze movements from top to bottom and bottom to top of a gra.s.s-tangle.

When he got through he shook himself, and smoothed off his legs exactly as the circus-men do. Then he took a long pull at a clover well.

"Ah, the clover! Dearest! you should have seen how it swung to-day. The stupidest person in the world could not have helped thinking that it kept time to invisible band-playing, and was trying to catch hold of the b.u.t.tercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen of the Fairies home to tea if I met her in a wood.

"Laughing, are you, darling? Yes, I know it. Poor soul! You cannot help being a man, I suppose. Nor would I have you help it, my great, strong, glorious one! How I adore the things which you do, which I could not do.

Oh, my sweet master! Never fear that I do you less reverence than I should. All the same, I lie back on my ferny hillock, and look you in the eye, and ask you what you think would become of you if you had no little one of my kind to bring you honey! And when I say this--you--ah, my darling, now there are tears in my eyes, and the moonlight grows dim. I cannot bear the thinking what you would do when I said those words!

Good-night! Perhaps in my sleep I will say them again, and you will be there to answer. In the morning I shall write out for you to-day's clover song.

"YOUR OWN."

The clover song was not in the letter. We found it afterward on a small piece of paper, so worn and broken in the folds that we knew it must have been carried for months in a pocket-book.

A Song of Clover.

I wonder what the Clover thinks?-- Intimate friend of Bob-o-links, Lover of Daisies slim and white, Waltzer with b.u.t.ter-cups at night; Keeper of Inn for travelling Bees, Serving to them wine dregs and lees, Left by the Royal Humming-birds, Who sip and pay with fine-spun words; Fellow with all the lowliest, Peer of the gayest and the best; Comrade of winds, beloved of sun, Kissed by the Dew-drops, one by one; Prophet of Good Luck mystery By sign of four which few may see; Symbol of Nature's magic zone, One out of three, and three in one; Emblem of comfort in the speech Which poor men's babies early reach; Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by sills, Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills, Sweet in its white, sweet in its red, Oh, half its sweet cannot be said; Sweet in its every living breath, Sweetest, perhaps, at last, in death!

Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks?

No one! unless the Bob-o-links!

The lines which were written on the paper inclosing the pomegranate flower from Jaffa we deciphered with great trouble. The last verse we were not quite sure about, for there had been erasures. But I think we were right finally.

Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!

I dare to be thy death, To slay thee while the summer sun Is quickening thy breath; To rob the autumn of thy wine;-- Next year of all ripe seeds of thine, That thou mayest bear one kiss of mine To my dear love before my death.

For, Heart of fire, I too am robbed Like thee! Like thee, I die, While yet my summer sun of love Is near, and warm, and high; The autumn will run red with wine; The autumn fruits will swing and shine; But in that little grave of mine I shall not see them where I lie.

Pomegranate blossom! Heart of fire!

This kiss, so slow, so sweet, Thou bearest hence, can never lose Even in death its heat.

Redder than autumns can run with wine, Warmer than summer suns can shine, Forever that dear love of mine Shall find thy sacred hidden sweet!

The next letter which I copied was one written five years after the first; it is not so much a letter as an allegory, and so beautiful, so weird, that we wondered Esther did not set it to tune as a poem.

"SUNDAY MORNING.

"MY DARLING:--Even this blazing September sun looks dull to me this morning. I have come from such a riotous dream. All last night I walked in a realm of such golden splendor, that I think even in our fullest noon I shall only see enough light to grope by for days and days.

"I do not know how to tell you my dream. I think I must put it in shape of a story of two people; but you will know, darling, that in my dream it was you and I. And I honestly did dream it, love, every word just as I shall write it for you; only there are no words which so glow and light and blaze as did the chambers through which we walked. I had been reading about the wonderful gold mines of which every one is talking now, and this led to my dream.

"You can laugh if you like, sweet master mine, but I think it is all true, and I call it

"The Mine of Gold.

"There is but one true mine of gold; and of it no man knows, and no woman, save those who go into it. Neither can they who go tell whether they sink into the earth's heart or are caught up into the chambers of the air, or led to the outer pavilions of the sea. Suddenly they perceive that all around, above, below them is gold: rocks of gold higher than they can see; caves whose depths are bright with gold; lakes of gold which is molten and leaps like fire, but in which flowers can be dipped and not wither; sands of gold, soft and pleasant to touch; innumerable shapes of all things beautiful, which wave and change, but only from gold to gold; air which shines and shimmers like refiner's gold; warmth which is like the glow of the red gold of Ophir; and everywhere golden silence!

"Hand in hand walk the two to whom it is given to enter here: of the gold, they may carry away only so much as can be hid in their bosoms; grains which are spilled, or are left on their garments, turn to ashes; only to each other may they speak of these mysteries; but all men perceive that they have riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels.

"Suddenly it comes to pa.s.s that one day a golden path leads them farther than they have ever gone before, and into a vast chamber, too vast to be measured. Its walls, although they are of gold, are also like crystal.

This is a mystery. Only three sides are walled. The fourth side is the opening of a gallery which stretches away and away, golden like a broad sunbeam: from out the distance comes the sound of rushing waters; however far they walk in that gallery, still the golden sunbeam stretches before them; still the sound of the waters is no nearer: and so would the sunbeam and the sound of the waters be forever, for they are Eternity.

"But there is a fourth mystery. On the walls of crystal gold, on all sides, shine faces; not dead faces, not pictured faces; living faces--warm, smiling, reflected faces.

"Then it is revealed to the two who walk hand in hand that these are the faces of all who have ever entered in, as they, between the walls of crystal gold; flashing faces of the sons of G.o.d looking into eyes of earthly women;--these were the first: and after them, all in their generations until to-day, the sons of men with the women they have loved.

The men's faces smile; but the faces of the women have in them a joy greater than a smile.

"Presently the two who walk hand in hand see their own faces added to the others, with the same smile, the same joy; and it is revealed to them that these faces are immortal. Through all eternity they will shine on the walls of crystal gold; and those who have once looked on them can never more see in each other change or loss of beauty.

"If as they walk there, in the broad sunbeam, an angel meets them, bearing the tokens of a golden bowl that is broken and a silver cord that is unloosed, they follow him without grief or fear, thinking on that chamber of crystal gold!

"Good-by, darling!

"ESTHER."

The third letter was written three years after this one. Sadness was beginning to cloud the free, joyous outpourings of Esther's heart.

Probably this sadness was one of the first symptoms of the failure of her health. It was from this letter chiefly--although there were expressions in others which deepened the impression--that we inferred that her lover had tried to stimulate in her an intellectual ambition.

"WEDNESDAY EVENING.

"DEAR ONE:--Your last letter gave me great pain. It breaks my heart to see you looking so earnestly and expectantly into my future. Beloved, that I have grown and developed so much in the last seven years is no proof that I can still keep on growing. If you understood, darling, you would see that it is just the other way. I have grown year by year, hour by hour, because hour by hour I have loved you more. That is all! I have felt the growth. I know it, as clearly as you do. But I know the secret of it as you do not; and I know the limit of it, as you cannot. I cannot love you more, precious one! Neither would I if I could! One heart-beat more in a minute, and I should die! But all that you have so much loved and cared for, dear, calling it intellectual growth and expansion in me, has been only the clearing, refining, and stimulating of every faculty, every sense, by my love for you. When I have said or written a word which has pleased you thus, if there were any special fitness or eloquence in the word, it was only because I sought after what would best carry my thought to you, darling; what would be best frame, best setting, to keep the flowers or the sky which I had to see alone,--to keep them till you could see them too! Oh, dear one, do understand that there is nothing of me except my heart and my love! While they were wonderingly, tremblingly, rapturously growing within me, under the sweet warmth of your love, no wonder I changed day by day. But, precious one, it is ended. The whole solemn, steadfast womanhood within me recognizes it. Beloved master, in one sense you can teach me no more! I am content. I desire nothing. One moment of full consciousness of you, of life, of your love, is more than all centuries of learning, all eternities of inspiration. I would rather at this moment, dear, lay my cheek on your hand, and sit in my old place by your knee, and feel myself the woman you have made me, than know all that G.o.d knows, and make a universe!

"Beloved, do not say such things to me any more; and whenever you feel such ambition and hope stirring in your heart, read over this little verse, and be sure that your child knew what she said when she wrote it:--

"The End of Harvest.

"O Love, who walkest slow among my sheaves, Smiling at tint and shape, thy smile of peace, But whispering of the next sweet year's increase,-- O tender Love, thy loving hope but grieves My heart! I rue my harvest, if it leaves Thee vainly waiting after harvests cease, Like one who has been mocked by t.i.tle lease To barren fields.

Dear one, my word deceives Thee never. Hearts one summer have. Their grain 'Is sown not that which shall be!'

Can new pain Teach me of pain? Or any ecstasy Be new, that I should speak its name again?

My darling, all there was or is of me Is harvested for thine Eternity!

ESTHER."

The fourth letter was the one which Princess had found, the first which my uncle had read--Esther's farewell to her lover before going abroad. No wonder that it so moved him!