Front matter (continued 3)

"Like a vase in which roses have once been distilled,

You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

And Flora also prayed; she besought the Lord with a fervour and depth of feeling beyond any which she ever before had known. Her whole soul was poured out in prayer. Her self-righteousness crushed in the dust, she felt herself now to be a sinner indeed, and she came to the Friend of sinners with a broken and contrite heart. She implored the life of her mother; she besought the Almighty to grant her an opportunity of being once more a comfort and blessing to that cherished parent--of repaying some portion, some little portion, of the deep debt of love which she owed to her. She prayed for herself, for grace and for strength--alas! she had proved her own sinfulness and weakness. She had been weighed in the balance and found wanting; and it was almost with a sensation of despair that Flora now contemplated the difficulties of her position--difficulties which had been of her own seeking, and which, however lightly she had once regarded them, now appeared almost insuperable. If heavenly love drew her onward and upward, she knew too well that earthly love would act as a clog on her soul. The partner whom she had chosen would never aid her weakness in the struggle against worldliness--rather would he side with the enemy. He would never warm the coldness of her devotion by the fervour of his own; his prayers and hers would never rise together to the throne of their Father in heaven. Flora's soul was full of anguish for her idolized Amery. If it was grief to think that her mother's gentle spirit might be now on the wing from this world of sorrow, what was it to think that the spirit of her husband might never rise, to the bliss of the world which is to come! If affection shrinks from the death of the body, it shudders over the death of the soul. Separation in time is to the loving heart a trial almost too painful to contemplate; what then must be separation throughout eternity--the sole parting which is indeed for ever!

The only time that Flora quitted the door of her mother's apartment was when she sought that which had once been her favourite sitting-room, to procure writing materials with which to pen a letter to her husband. The fast flowing tears which dimmed her eyes and blotted her page hardly suffered her to complete it. The letter gave a vivid and touching picture of all the emotions which were agitating her mind. Sorrow, contrition, tenderness, were expressed in the unstudied language of the heart. Flora told him whom she dared not deem a Christian how a Christian could die. She dwelt on her mother's piety; she left her husband to draw the inferences which she longed to place before him in such a light as might strike conviction even on his prejudiced soul. She wept and she prayed over the letter, but the darkness before her was scarcely illumined by one ray of hope.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DARK JOURNEY.

"Indeed, aunt Flora, you must go to rest; you look so pale and ill, you almost frighten me," said Lyddie.

The appearance of the girl was much changed. She still looked sickly, from the effects of her own recent illness, and from her hair having been close cut during her fever; but the once wild neglected weed had not been cultivated in vain. Thought and sense were expressed in the large dark eyes beyond what might have been expected in a girl scarcely twelve years of age. All the latent tenderness of Lyddie's nature had been called out by Mrs. Vernon; grateful affection to an earthly benefactor had become a ruling motive in the orphan's heart, already strengthened rather than replaced by a motive yet more high and holy. The task which Flora had deemed hopeless another had performed; the once wild, wilful, untamed girl, had been brought to the feet of the Saviour.

"I cannot rest," replied Flora, sadly; "and you, Lyddie, you have been sitting up all the night!"

"No, I have been sleeping on the couch at the foot of the bed, while Ann watched by dear grandmamma. I could not bear to be far away. Now Ann is resting for a little on the couch; she has had no sleep these two nights, you know, and I am ready to call her up in a moment, if grandmamma should stir ever so little."

"Is my precious mother then sleeping?"

"Yes, she is sleeping now; isn't it a comfort?--she has been so restless, as if she were in pain; but she is quite peaceful now--so very peaceful!"

"Oh that I could but look at her!" faltered Flora.

"I think that you might, if you crept in very softly."

"If I were to awaken her!"

"Oh! she does not look as if she would awake!"

The simple words of the child sent a sudden, strange thrill of terror through Flora's heart! What if that deep sleep were a sleep which could never be broken! Lady Legrange entered the silent apartment chilled with the cold, faint and dizzy with watching, her trembling limbs scarcely able to support her. The early gleam of morning, dimly seen through the half-closed shutter, mingled its light with that of the flickering, expiring night-lamp. The curtains of the invalid's bed were drawn back to give her air--Lady Legrange again beheld her mother. She looked on the dear face, which she had not seen for years--ah! what a change time, sorrow, and sickness, had wrought there! Yet still beautiful it lay in its perfect stillness, white as the pillow on which it reclined. Every feature appeared sculptured in marble, in its calm, unearthly serenity. The lips did not move, the bosom did not heave, there was no quiver in the closed eyelids! Flora bent to listen: she could not distinguish the slightest sound--oh! the relief that even a moan would have brought to her then!

A little feather lay on the crimson coverlet; Flora raised it with a trembling hand, placed it almost close to the lips of her mother, and then watched it as a perishing castaway might watch a distant sail, the one dim speck of hope on the dark waste of waters. It moved!--yes, yes--it moved! It was not the morning breeze that stirred the down; the breath of life had not passed away from those pallid lips; they might yet speak a blessing--they were not closed for ever!

Flora retired from the room with noiseless step, shedding silent tears of thankfulness and joy.

The doctor came, but would not disturb the sleeper. Every hour of quiet repose, he said, would do more to restore the sufferer than all the remedies which art could devise. He believed, he trusted, that the crisis was past. Should this slumber continue every hope might be indulged; but the house must be kept perfectly quiet.

And perfectly quiet it was kept. Even the sound of children's voices was hushed, and little feet crept noiselessly down stairs. Johnny took off his shoes ere he passed his grandmother's room. Flora still continued at her melancholy post--watching at the door which she feared to enter, weeping, praying, and reviewing her past life with deep humility and contrition.

The sun had reached his noonday height, though remaining invisible behind the clouds, which had been ceaselessly pouring down their white, flaky showers upon the earth, when, with a rapid step and flushed countenance, Johnny hurried towards Lady Legrange. He needed not the gesture of her finger on her lip; he uttered not a word, spoke not a question, but he thrust into her hand an open paper which had just been brought from the telegraph office. Flora felt dizzy and confused; she passed her hand across her eyes before she could read the paper, and when she had read it every object appeared swimming around her. It was brief, as such messages always are, but how terrible in its stern brevity,--

"Sir Amery has been thrown from his horse. Return home without delay, if you would find him alive."

That was all that was written, but it was enough--enough to wring the heart, to fill the cup of anguish to overflowing! Flora started from her seat--she was pale as death; but she uttered no cry--but one object was before her now. Oh! for the lightning's wing to fly back to her husband!

When the spirit is burning with an impatience which would make the swiftness of the eagle appear slow, how intolerable are the petty difficulties, the unavoidable delays which constantly interpose. Where was a conveyance to be found in Wingsdale to take Flora to the station, which was barely two miles distant? Johnny, a willing messenger, started off in the snow-storm; but though the boy exerted his utmost speed, it appeared a weary age to Flora before he returned. He came back heated and tired, with disappointment in his glowing face. The conveyance which Flora had employed on the previous day had returned to the town, ten miles distant; the doctor, who alone boasted a little carriage in Wingsdale, was out, and might not return before evening; the farmer's horse had fallen lame;--there was no vehicle of any kind to be procured.

"Then I will go on foot. Oh! that I had not delayed!" cried Flora, wringing her hands; "I might have been at the station by this time."

In vain the wondering maid of Lady Legrange ventured to expostulate with her mistress, pointed to the cloudy sky and the fast descending snow. No earthly persuasion could stay the wife, not even the anxieties of the daughter. These anxieties, indeed, had been in a certain measure relieved; Mrs. Vernon had awoke calm and refreshed, and had dictated to Lyddie a message of affection to be sent to her Flora, little dreaming that at that moment the same roof covered them both.

Flora, accompanied only by her maid, set out on her gloomy journey. The violence of the wind was so great, that umbrellas were left behind as useless, while the falling snow so obscured the view, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them. To Flora, however, the path was so well known that she could have found her way blindfold. The fields were one white level, save where, beside the glistening hedges, the wind had drifted the snow into heaps. Flora's feet sank into the white mass at each step, she toiled with difficulty along the path; yet urged on by love and fear, she paused not for a moment even to take breath, or to shake the snowflakes from her mantle. She thought not of weariness, she thought not of suffering;--her whole soul was wrapped up in her husband. Surely the road had lengthened since she last trod it--would she never arrive at the place of her destination!

At length--at length the station is in sight, the little red-brick building, standing alone where the telegraph posts, with their straight black wires, stand in sharp defined outline against the white back-ground. Ha! there is a sound! Flora starts with an exclamation of distress--it is the shrill scream of the railway whistle--a long black object is rolling away into the distance, swift and swifter! Flora gazes after it with straining eyes, then sinks exhausted on a snow-heap beside the road; no need to hasten on now--she has missed the train--she too late!

Slowly and sadly, conscious now of utter weariness and exhaustion, Flora made her way to the station. "When may the next train be expected?" was her eager question when she arrived there.

"The next? about three hours hence."

How sank Flora's heart at the reply! Those hours might have been spent beside her mother might be so still; but no, fainting nature refused the effort; not the smallest hazard must be run of missing the next--the latest train. Flora warmed her shivering frame at the fire in the one bare little waiting-room at the station, then seated herself by the small table, and leaning her arms upon it, bowed down upon them her drooping head. She remained so long in this position that her maid believed that she slept. Then Flora arose, and paced up and down like a caged leopard, looked at her watch again and again, and gazed impatiently out on the snow. The railway man was whistling an air; it struck painfully on the lady's ear; in her utter misery it seemed strange to Flora that any human being could be happy.

An express train rushed past with a roar like thunder, awakening for a moment a hope which vanished like itself into darkness. Flora sat long with her eyes fixed on the telegraph-paper, as though she could draw from the lines, which she knew by heart, the information which their brevity denied. Alas! her fears supplied its place too well.

The three hours passed--Time does move on, even when his wings are of lead--but still no sight of the longed-for train.

"It is late," said the railway official; "doubtless its progress has been delayed by the snow."

Flora could sit still no longer; she was in a fever of restless expectation, and sorely her patience was tried. The train was long behind time; night closed in before at length the welcome bell of preparation was heard. Lady Legrange felt something almost resembling joy when she found herself seated at last in the train with her maid. A gentleman, whose features she could scarcely distinguish in the gloom, was their only fellow-traveller in the carriage. He made some common-place observation on the weather, which Flora neither comprehended nor answered. Her thoughts were becoming a wild chaos: she could not collect them sufficiently even for prayer.

On, on through the darkness and gloom--surely never train moved on so slowly before!--surely never were so many vexatious delays! Flora wept no longer; her fount of tears appeared to be dried up. Her brow was throbbing with a burning pain; a band of iron seemed pressed across her temples She was scarcely conscious of what was passing around her, when the weary journey ended at last.

Bewildered and confused, the hapless Lady Legrange found herself in the midst of the bustle of an arrival in London at night. Friends and servants were there waiting for travellers; but, either from neglect on the part of her own household, or from her having been expected by the earlier train, no one was in waiting for Flora. In vain she strained her eyes to find some familiar face, to see some one who could relieve her agony of suspense, by giving her tidings of her husband. After some delay--and delay was torture--a conveyance was procured, in which the miserable wife was slowly jolted through narrow, gloomy streets, towards the home at which she yearned to arrive. The cab stopped at her own door; Flora sprang from it--herself rang the bell, gently, fearfully, for was not suffering within the dwelling? No answer! She rang the bell again, and, before the sound died away, the door was opened by a servant. He started at seeing his mistress; his face answered the question which she could not speak; he uttered but the sentence, "Too late!" and Flora sank senseless on the threshold.

CHAPTER XIX.

CONCLUSION.

The newspapers on the following day all dilated on one theme--the genius, the brilliant career, and the sudden death, of Sir Amery Legrange. Each had its paragraph of praise, not in every case unmingled with censure, but censure tenderly, sparingly dealt forth; for the melancholy fate of the gifted young author had wrung compassion from literary critics and theological opponents. In the gay saloons and haunts of fashion, of which he had but a few days since been the ornament and pride, his name was upon every tongue. In a brief space the news spread far and wide, like circles on a river when some large object has been suddenly plunged into its waters. But the current of society flowed on as ever; soon not the faintest ripple on its surface told that one of its proudest names had become a word of the past--that one of its loftiest spirits had gone to the "bourn from which no traveller returns."

But there was one being, weeping in her darkened chamber alone, in whose almost broken heart a void was made which nothing earthly could ever fill--one crushed beneath the weight of a grief for which even religion has no comfort. What mattered it to her that the voice of nations swelled the tribute to departed genius--that he whom she so passionately loved would occupy a niche in the temple of Fame! Blessed mourners are they who weep for the dead translated to a more blissful existence; thrice blessed they who, when all the pride of this world shall have passed away like a fevered dream, shall hear the voice of the Saviour pronounce the sentence, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" But Flora sorrowed as one without hope. Oh! that those who, in defiance of the command--the merciful warning of their God--choose to twine the dearest affections of their hearts around an earthly pillar, on which "holiness to the Lord" has never been inscribed, would anticipate the anguish of that day when, beneath the stroke of the angel of death, that pillar shall lie shattered in the dust; and Despair, gazing on the broken relics of all that was dear, fair, talented, and brave, shall utter the mournful wail, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"

Little was it to the bereaved young widow that, with the loss of her dearest treasure, wealth also took wings to itself and fled away. Sir Amery's income had principally consisted of life-rent; careless in money concerns, little anticipating so sudden and speedy a close to his career, he had left a very scanty provision for his survivor. There was, indeed, a new work of his, almost completed, for which contending publishers were ready to offer sums which would have materially enlarged the scanty resources of Lady Legrange. The posthumous work of an author so renowned was certain to command the eager attention of the public; and Flora received various communications on the subject. She read the manuscript, wept over the lines which had been last traced by the loved hand now cold in death; she then folded up the papers, enclosed and sealed them, and, resolved that no eye but her own should ever peruse the unhallowed creation of a mind which had made fatal progress in error, she endorsed the packet with a command that at her death other hands should burn, unread, that which she had not herself the heart to destroy. "These would be his orders, could he speak from the grave," said Flora to herself, as she locked up the papers in her cabinet's deepest recess. "Oh! would he not desire to obliterate in all his writings every page which could injure others when he is himself no more--every page which could witness against him! O God! my God!" exclaimed the widow, suddenly raising her clasped hands with a cry of anguish wrung from the depths of her soul, "they cannot be obliterated--they cannot be recalled--it is too late!--oh! misery! it is too late!"

The first thing which served in any degree to restore composure to the unhappy Flora was her return to her early home. Mrs. Vernon, who had been too ill to hasten to her daughter when the tidings of her bereavement arrived, or even for some time to be permitted to know of her loss, was now convalescent, and welcomed her beloved child with a depth and intensity of loving sympathy that poured balm into Flora's bleeding heart. She had thought, in the first transport of her anguish, that all had been rent from her at once; but she found that one of earth's most priceless blessings was left to her yet--the deep, unchanged, holy love of her mother.

Mrs. Vernon received back her Flora as a precious treasure restored; and it was a treasure purified, beautified, refined. The furnace of affliction, seven times heated, had not been heated in vain.

Gradually Flora resumed her daily round of occupations, and passed a life closely resembling that which had been hers at the period when our story opened. She visited the sick and the poor, comforted the sorrowful, taught the ignorant--neglected none of the duties of home. But in how different a spirit were those duties performed! With what altered feelings did the chastened mourner now repeat the confession of the sins of whose existence she had then scarcely known! Shrinking from the idea of resting on her own righteousness, her own imperfect and polluted works, Flora's only hope was in the merits of her Saviour--her greatest solace the remembrance of His death--her aim and object in life to show her humble gratitude to Him who had loved and given Himself for her. She was no more as a sunbeam in the dwelling--her sparkling brightness was gone for ever; but rather like the gentle moonbeam that illumines the night, shining with a soft lustre, borrowed from the only true Source of happiness and of light.

We have seen how the seed of the Word had sprung up in a shallow soil, made a fair show, and then withered away; how the plant of earthly love had succeeded, striking deep its roots, spreading wide its branches, obscuring the light of heaven, darkening the earth with its fatal shade. God in mercy had torn up that plant; and though the uprooting of it had appeared to wrench asunder the very heart-strings that had twined so closely around it, to lay bare the deepest recesses of the soil, it prepared that soil, through the divine blessing, for the precious seed of truth. The word of God, now received in humility and meekness, rested in the ground which the Lord had rendered good, and brought forth abundantly the fruit of holy living, to the praise and glory of the Giver of all grace.

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