Part 2 — A VOICE FROM THE WAYSIDE,

ABOUT GRACE GERMAIN’S LIFE-ROMANCE.

———

BY CAROLINE C——.

———

’Tis as easy for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green, or skies to be blue⁠—

’Tis the natural way of living!

Vision of Sir Launfal.

The school was dismissed, and a multitude of boys and girls came rushing out from the old frame building, and tore pell-mell down the streets of a country village, just like merry, care-naught mad-caps as they were. Of all ages and sizes were these little folks—they were the life and the care of a great many homes; some heirs of poverty, and some, but these were few, heirs of wealth—but each and all had brought with them into the world enough of love to secure for themselves a welcome place at the board, and by the hearth. They resembled very much any other congregation of children in the world—some of them remarkable for their stupidity, and presenting always to their teachers the same thick skulls, which it appeared nothing could penetrate—others again, quick at learning, to whom it was a relief for the weary Mentors to turn, and to whose mental wants they attended with a glad alacrity.

But I am not going to generalize any more at this time; and shall only add to the foregoing remarks, that this school was a marvel in its way—the teachers prodigies in learning, and all the parents thought their young children’s acquirements actually verging on to the miraculous—which state of things, I will add as a P. S., is remarkably pleasant for all parties concerned. Is it not teachers, and parents, and you poor little scholars?

Several girls, from nine to twelve years of age, were walking homeward leisurely, and talking loudly and earnestly on some important topic, as school-girls sometimes will, when a young boy, also one of the scholars, passed by them. With singular boldness he turned his handsome face full toward the little party as he passed, and one of the girls, whose name was Grace Germain, must have seen something remarkably expressive of somewhat in the boy’s black eyes, for very suddenly she seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation, in which, by the way, she had been one of the chief participators the moment before—and the little girl’s step grew slower and slower. Finally, taking one of her school-books from under her arm, Grace seemed all at once to be seized with a decidedly studious fit, (for the first time that week,) and then her shoe-strings must needs unloosen, and she must stop to fasten them, till at last, as might be expected, her companions were far beyond her in the homeward way, and she was left quite alone. When the child passed by a little lane her face became quite suddenly and unaccountably flushed, and Grace grew decidedly nervous in her movements, and she turned away her head, as though it were forbidden, and a sin for her to look down that narrow by-way where Dame Corkins and the little lame child lived.

But these mysterious movements were all explained when, a moment after, some one came marching, to a tune of double-quick time, up the lane, and when he appeared on the main-street again, lo and behold! it was that same black-eyed urchin Hugh Willson, who had a few moments previous passed by her, and he called out,

“Grace, Grace Germain, wait a moment; I want to tell you something!”

Grace of course blushed, and looked sideways, and down, and finally at the boy, but for the life of her she could not summon up a look of astonishment at his appearance, finally she said,

“Well, what do you want, Hugh?”

“I’m going home, Grace, to-morrow, and—and—I wanted to see you just to give you this; perhaps you’ll think I’m a fool for my pains. I wish though it was worth its weight in gold!”

Oh! you would have certainly thought that the poor girl’s face was on the point of blazing instantly, could you have seen it, and Hugh thought there were really tears in her eyes too, as she put out her hand for the little package he had brought her. For some distance they walked on together, and neither spoke.

At length, as she drew near home, Grace found courage to look up and say, “Hugh, what are you going home for?”

“Father has sent for me, I am to go to an academy, but—” Hugh did not finish the sentence, and after waiting an unconscionable time, and speaking at last as though a “drag” were fastened to every word, Grace said,

“You will come to see us again sometime, wont you, Hugh?”

“Yes, if I ever can. I can’t bear to go away now, Grace, but, as father says, I am getting old. I’m almost fifteen, and it’s a fact I ought to know more than I do. Perhaps I’ve staid in the country too long already; but I hate a city, and I shall come back here just as often as I can, for I love this place better than all the world.”

And that, reader, was rather a strange confession to be made by a spirit so active and stirring as was Hugh Willson’s, for of all country villages on the face of the earth, “Romulus” was certainly the dullest, and least attractive.

“I’m coming down by here to-night, Grace,” said the lad, as he opened the gate for the child, “if you would like to see me, come out here—I cannot bid you good-bye now—will you be here?”

“Yes, Hugh,” was the reply given sadly—and this time it was a great deal more than she could do to keep back or hide her tears—for Grace Germain thought Hugh Willson the handsomest and kindest boy she ever knew, and she could not bear to think of his going away. So she left him with little ceremony, and went into the house. And the boy saw her grief, and he could have wept also—he loved Grace Germain!

Well, what do you think made up that unpretending package—the parting gift? First and foremost, there was a little box, and it contained—not a gem, not a book, but—a fresh, beautiful rose-bud; and Grace did not laugh when she saw it, neither did she smile as she unwound the strip of paper from the stem, and read thereon,

“Give me but

Something whereunto I may bind my heart⁠—

Something to love, to rest upon, to clasp

Affection’s tendrils round!”

She did not laugh, I say, for sorrow was in her heart, the first deep sorrow she had ever known. Hugh was going away—and how much better she liked him than all other boys she had ever known in her life! But the rose-bud was not all the contents of the box; there was beside it a magnificent sheet of blue paper, gilt edged, and “superfine,” and on it Hugh had copied the “Parting Song,” by Mrs. Hemans; and perhaps, good reader, though you be not fresh from Yankee land, you may guess how the child’s heart beat faster than ever it had before, as she read the words—

When will you think of me, dear Grace?

When will you think of me?

When the last red light, the farewell of day,

From the rock and the river is passing away,

When the air with a deep’ning hush is fraught,

And the heart goes burdened with tender thought?

Then let it be!

When will you think of me, sweet Grace?

When will you think of me?

When the rose of the rich midsummer time

Is filled with the hues of its glorious prime,

When ye gather its bloom, as in bright hours fled,

From the walks where my footsteps no more may tread;

Then let it be!

Thus let my memory be with you, Grace⁠—

Thus ever think of me!

Kindly, and gently, but as of one

For whom ’tis well to be fled and gone;

As of a bird from a chain unbound,

As of a wanderer whose home is found;

So let it be!

And what had Grace to give to Hugh? What had she among her few treasured possessions a boy would care for? The dolls maimed for life—the broken china—the picture-books—the bits of lace and ribbons, what were they to him? Grace never realized her poverty before that day—and then the very thought was humiliating. If she could only buy a knife, or a pocket-book, or a pencil-case; but the child had no purse, and, unfortunately, no money either, so that thought was speedily abandoned. It grew quite dark while she stood in her little room, still before the opened drawer which held all her keepsakes and treasures, but no good fairy was nigh at hand to lay before her the thing she wished, and at last, quite in despair, she went and stood by the parlor window, and lo, there was Hugh already passing by, whistling, and looking for all the world as though the inmates of that particular house were nothing in the least to him.

In a few moments, side by side, the boy and girl were walking in the garden.

“I have read your note, Hugh,” said Grace, for the “shades of evening” creeping over them, gave her a wonderful and unnatural boldness to speak, “but what shall I give you for a keepsake? I haven’t a book in the world you would give a fig for.”

“Don’t talk about books,” replied he, hastily, “there is something that wouldn’t cost you much, I’d give more for than for all the books in Christendom!”

“What is it, Hugh, tell me quick?”

“Just that curl on your forehead! Give me that, Grace, and I never will part with it.”

In a moment it was separated from the thick curls that adorned her head, and stooping down, Grace laid a forget-me-not in it, and gave it to Hugh. He—what? kissed it, and kissed Grace, and then put the curls safely in his vest-pocket, and told the child she was the prettiest and best girl he ever knew, and that he should miss her more than all the boys and girls of the village together.

But while the lad was in the very midst of his ardent protestations, a voice from the house called to Grace, and the children parted—to meet again, how and when you shall not be so long learning as they were.

Hugh went to his city home, Grace to her school. He dreaming of Grace Germain as a woman, and wondering if she would not then be his wife—she to resume her studies with no great interest, to wish day after day that Hugh would only come back again, and to wonder if he would be so handsome when he was a man as he was then.

Years passed, Grace was no longer a child but a beautiful girl—a bride; and yet Hugh Willson was not her bridegroom.

A rich young merchant of a neighboring town, captivated by her loveliness and charming manners, had “wooed an won,” and a nine days’ wonder in the village of Romulus, was the wonderful good fortune of the orphan—for of late years Grace had been dependent on her relatives, her parents having died while she was yet very young.

Grace had never seen or heard of the boy of rose-bud memory since their first parting, but her thoughts of him had always been those we have for a pleasant unforgotten dream. And she kept the little gift that Hugh had given her most religiously. The very night before her bridal, though she had wept happy tears over the noble, tender note that Clarence Lovering sent her with a splendid ornament—a wedding-gift—still she had it in her heart even then, to look with no ordinary interest on the little pasteboard box that held the withered flower, and to read, not carelessly, the verses Hugh had written her in a large, boyish hand so long ago.

Yet it was not faithlessness to later vows that prompted her to kiss the rose-bud, and to preserve still longer the blue note and the little box, for Grace with all her heart respected Clarence Lovering, and she loved him well, too. She was a lofty, true-spirited girl, and when she married the young merchant, for better or for worse, as it might prove, she did it with a true and loyal heart; and it was in all respects a union in which might well be asked, and without doubt or fear, the blessing of Heaven.

But there were bitterer tears to be shed, and deeper griefs to be borne than Grace Lovering had yet known; six months after her marriage she followed her young husband to the grave, and there was none on earth that could sustain or uphold her in that day of terrible visitation. Voices and forms with which she was scarcely familiar came to comfort her, but the friend whose companionship would have made any place in the wide world a pleasant home for her, was dead; and the bereaved woman longed to return once again to her early home—the village where all her early life was passed—to bury her husband and lover beside her parents, under the willow-tree in the old burial-ground, and then to mourn in quietness, and alone, away from the scenes of the bustling, noisy town.

And all her desires were speedily complied with—her old guardian and uncle from the little village came to her to assist, and conduct her back to Romulus; and before the year was passed, Grace was again at home in the old house where she was born, and in the grave-yard near by, on which she could daily, hourly look, her husband slept.

Kindly and tenderly the old neighbors welcomed back the mourner to their midst; and there, where in her childish heart love had first awakened, there, where in later years she had watched in agony the dear ones of the household “passing away” silently into the “silent land;” there, in the old dwelling, which, during the few past years had stood tenantless, and looking so broken-hearted; there, in her early womanhood, Grace Lovering, the desolate and stricken, came back to make it her abiding-place, her lonely home. She felt that to her a cold twilight of existence only was remaining, that the sunshine which rests so richly and revivingly on the young and the beloved, would be henceforth faint and weak as her own heart. But it was not wholly so, time the great soother, as well as destroyer and chastener, took the sting and the poignancy from her grief, and, like the dove with its olive branch, there spread through her soul that trust in Heaven’s infinite goodness, that makes the wilderness even to blossom.

Placed far above the reach of poverty, the miseries and cares of want did not mingle their bitterness with her heart-sorrow. And in all, save those few natural but dread experiences, Grace bade fair to be a “babe at seventy,” in that unwelcome wisdom which continued misfortunes only can impart.

It was her thirtieth birth-day, and the anniversary of her marriage. The widow sat alone in the pleasant parlor of her cottage; she had remained alone that day, and with tears dedicated it to her heart’s sacred memories. Every thing about the room and the house, was pleasantly indicative of a refined and peaceful way of living, and of cheerfulness, too, save and except the sorrowing woman, who, at nightfall paced the room, and looked so sadly into the past. The curtains of the windows were drawn and the door closed; Grace had been looking again over the treasures of her casket. It was in that very room, twenty years before, she had laid down on that night of their parting, to dream about Hugh Willson, and to pray for his happiness; and now she stood there a widow, sad and desolate, in her prime of life, thinking of the love of her later life—and weeping as she thought—for Clarence Lovering was worthy to be so remembered and loved.

In the beautiful casket, his gift, were laid the bridal ornaments which he had given; she had never worn them since his death, but kept them where no eye but her own could gaze upon them, and think of his loving kindness, but with them was preserved still a withered flower whose fragrance had fled quite away, and never with a heart quite calm, had Grace been able to look upon it; neither had she ever been able to think with indifference, or a mere idle curiosity of thought, on the probable worth of Hugh Willson’s manhood.

At length, as the night came on, the letters, and the jewels, and the rose, were laid away, but the miniature of her lost husband was lying next her heart then—for the love of the woman was vaster and deeper than that of the child; and Grace had dried her tears, for the hope that consoles the Christian mourner had conquered the agony of spirit that for a time overwhelmed her.

The evening proved dark and stormy, the pattering of the rain upon the window-sill, and the still softer and more dream-like sound with which it falls upon the grass, which is so pleasant to hear when all within the house is bright and cheerful, was a melancholy sound to the lonely woman, for it fell upon the graves in the burial-ground, where the damp earth was the only shelter of her beloved ones, and its echo fell upon that grave in her heart where lay buried the hopes of her youth—she might have, and I know not but she did, draw from it a hope and a promise of resurrection and of life both for her lamented dead, and for her vanished joy in life.

The quiet of the chamber was for a moment broken, a servant entered, a letter laid upon the table, and then the door was closed, the post-boy gone, and all was still again.

Mechanically the widow tore off the envelope, and opened the epistle. Let us read it with her, for Grace Lovering is born to a new life when those contents are made known to her—she dwells no longer in the so lonely present, or the sad past. For her also the future is alive again. She did not look for a resurrection so sudden and so strange—did you?

“Grace, dear Grace Germain, from the sands of the desert my voice, perhaps long, long forgotten, comes to you again. It is night, ‘night in Arabia,’ and I am for a moment alone; my traveling companions are gone to their rest, but I—I cannot sleep, and so have come from out my tent to write by the light of the burning stars once again to her who was the little girl I knew and loved in childhood. You may think my man’s estate has been reached unworthily, because I still love to think of boyish hours, and long so to recall them—yes, that is it, long to recall them. Are you yourself unable to think of them as the very blessedest days you ever knew? If it is so, Grace, how idly will my words fall on your ear.

“I know nothing of what has been the fate of the child I loved so well. I know not if you are the bride of another, or, perchance, I may be addressing myself to one who no longer has a name on the earth; but even if the idol of my boyish years is living for, and to another, I can pray for and bless her. Yes, I pray God to bless you, Grace Germain. I cannot and will not believe that the woman to whom I address myself, is no more. There is something whispering to my spirit now, it is not so. I feel to-night a strong conviction, an irresistible presentiment that you and I will meet again. I dare not think how, but this I know, if it is not in this world, we shall know one another hereafter.

“If you remember me at all, I know it is only as the wild and trifling boy who loved you better than his books, better than all children he ever knew. You know me not at all as the stern, time-tried, care-worn man, who has fought fierce battles with fortune and life, who finds himself wasting the powers of his manhood, far severed from all domestic, humanizing ties, treasuring in his heart only one name that makes the joyful recollection of his youth—careless, cold, and selfish perhaps, but never losing hold of that one, dear link to the affection, the lasting, undying affection that was born of you in my youthful soul, and still, still preserves its strength through you.

“Perhaps, indeed, you do not in the faintest degree remember me. You may have to recall with an effort the time of childhood, or at least that time when I was your school-companion; nay, it may be an effort for you to recall my name. Oh, if that is the truth, how very different is it to the memory I have treasured of you, dear Grace. My home has been upon the oceans and in the deserts, and mid the wilds of nature every where. Many years have passed since I left my father’s house, and my feet have never from that time touched upon my native shores. During these years of absence I have had opportunities to try my heart. I have learned who are the friends most dear to me, and over the vast sea of the desert sand, across the great ocean, let my voice come and whisper in your ear, Grace, there are none, none whose memory is so treasured now as is your own! The longing which is so often felt by the wanderer for the scenes and familiar faces of his native land, has never before pressed so heavily on me as this night; and now I wish, oh, how eagerly, to revisit, if it be only for an hour, that quiet place where a portion of my school-life was passed; and yet it is only because it is, or may be still your home; and were I there again, I might tread with you along the race-course, and over the old bridge to —— Grove, and through all the haunts now treasured in my memory. Do you remember the gifts we gave at parting? and did you fling away the bud as a worthless, trifling thing, even before it was faded? Or—what madness, you will think, prompted such an idea—do you keep it still? Perhaps you had not then so fully awakened to the life of the heart, you may not have dreamed that with that simple memento I gave to you the dreams of my boyhood, the hopes of my youth. Grace, I gave you MY HEART with the flower. I have never since recalled it. And now, if memories are returning again to you, if you are looking half tremblingly into the past, you will think of the little curl and the frail forget-me-not. Oh, you will not need that I should tell now how in danger and in suffering, and through all the most varied experiences I have preserved them—and how I have not forgotten.

“Last night I dreamed that you kept the rose-bud yet, and, will you believe it, when I awakened, and recalled to mind the proverb about the truthfulness of dreams, and their contrariness, it troubled me. Thousands of miles lie between us, and we may never meet again, all recollections of my native land save those relating to you only, are hateful to me; but, could I only hear your voice assuring me this night, or could I believe that you would welcome me back, and say to me with your own sweet voice that you were glad to see me, oh, I should run and could not weary nor grow faint, and neither day nor night should look upon my lagging feet until I stood once more beside you. Thou, beautiful joy of my childhood, say, wouldst thou welcome me?

“Perhaps you will think I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in so addressing you, for the friendships and loves of children are, I know, usually evanescent as dreams, yet I cannot, will not, think that whatever may be your position in life now, or whatever may be the relations you sustain in life, I do not believe that you will scorn me for the words I have written, or that you will read carelessly this record of my thoughts.

“Time has dealt with no light hand to me, he may have given you, perhaps, with every passing year, a blessing. He has laid no caressing arm on me; possibly he has guided you thus far tenderly as a mother would lead her child. I have bowed beneath his frown, and you, you may have grown to glorious perfectness in the light of his smile. I have known deep sorrows—it may be, oh, I pray it may not be—that you also have not escaped the universal heritage. It might be far beyond your possibility to recognize in me the bright boy filled with glad expectations that you once knew; but I cannot but believe that I should know you, and recognize you amid a multitude—the mild and beautiful blue eyes—the meek, gentle, and so expressive countenance—the smile, so sweet and winning, that rested so often on the face of the dear child; oh, they are not yet forgotten. I am convinced the woman whom I love has a face whose expression is heavenly! Do not censure me, I pray, for daring to tell my love. The hope of being with you once again, and of speaking with and looking upon you, is like the hope of heaven to the pilgrim, weary and out-worn with earth-striving.

“Months will pass away before these words, uttered from the fullness of my heart, reach you—the heart from which they come may have ere then ceased its beating, may be cold and dead; but will it be nothing for you to know that its beatings were ever true to you, even though you never have, and do not now need my homage? Will you care to think that when I wrote these words it was my highest hope that I might one day follow them to the home of Grace Germain, to beseech at least her friendliness, to hear the tones of her dear voice again, and then perhaps to lie down to rest in the grave-yard near her home, where it would be no wrong for her to come sometimes, even from a circle of beloved ones, to think of days gone by, the days of merry childhood.

“I have written too much—too much; the day is dawning, we shall journey far through the desert before to-morrow morning, but to-night, with every word I have written, thoughts and great hopes have awakened which will never be stilled again—they will be with me till I stand once more before you; and if there be a dearer one on whom your eyes will rest as you lift them from this page, to whom you will confide this folly of an old man, as you perhaps will call it, yet still remember me, and let him think of me with forgiving kindness.

“May the rich blessing of heaven be with you now and ever.

“Hugh Willson.”

And had Hugh Willson, indeed, committed an unpardonable trespass in writing thus, after the lapse of so many years, to his old schoolmate? No, no! bear witness the sudden flashings of color, and the as sudden paleness which swept over the lady’s face as she read on; bear witness the occasional smiles, and the long and passionate weeping in which the lonely woman indulged, when her eyes rested so tenderly and sadly on the name affixed to the strange epistle. They were not tears of anger that she shed; it was not a smile of derision and mockery, at the sudden betrayal of affection the man had given, after a silence of years; they were not words of scorn which escaped her lips when she laid down to rest that night; ah, no! he had powerfully touched a chord in her soul, that from her childhood had ever vibrated even at the mention of his name.

There were eyes that were not closed in sleep during the hours of that night—but it was not grief that caused the widow’s wakefulness. There was one who listened till the morning to the heavy falling rain—but not in sadness; there was a lady who arose when the sunlight streamed once more through her chamber, who looked out on the blue heavens whence all the clouds had vanished, and hailed then a new era in her life-history.

From that day there was a marked change in the existence of Grace Lovering. That message of love which had come to her from the desert, at a time when life pressed heavily upon her, and death seemed the only hope of relief; that message aroused and cheered her, and made her to look more thankfully on the life yet vouchsafed to her, and the blessings which had been given along with the sorrows. Though the hope, and the thought even, seemed a wild one, that Hugh Willson would ever again return, the idea that he even remembered her, and thought still with interest on their childish years was grateful to her heart, and made her feel that neither for her nor for any one in the wide world is life utterly lonely and worthless.

True, the widowed and orphaned woman never forgot that she had buried her dead, that all her nearest of kin slept the long and quiet death-sleep; but a serenity and cheerfulness quite usurped the past frequent melancholy, and smiles were oftener seen upon her lovely face than tears. And not only in herself was the change visible; her household, and the little cottage seemed to share in the awakened happiness; and then, too, the poor and the needy had oftener cause to bless the widowed woman. The sick and suffering shared her loving care; and they blessed her—well might they—when she stood so often like a ministering angel beside them. The old and the weary mingled her name in their thanksgiving, for she failed not to make their downward path easy, and her voice was the voice of a comforter to them.

And this, as it were, instantaneous rousing up to active life, was a blessed thing for Grace. Time, after that great change, sped on no leaden wing; the clouds began to break, and stars came out, even when she had thought nothing but midnight darkness was forever her portion. The heart of the widow grew strong then, for she knew that when those stars were set, or hid again as they had been from her eyes, that the great sun itself would arise, and the never-ending daylight would break for her.

Ten years thus passed away. The shadows of forty winters had crept over the wife of Clarence Lovering; and still she wore the garments of mourning, in remembrance of the husband of her youth; but it was not a repining, murmuring spirit that dwelt beneath those doleful robes.

“Her faith had strengthened in Him whose love

No change or time can ever shock;”

and she dwelt on the earth blessing and blest.

Many times her hand had been sought in marriage; strong-willed men had bowed themselves, and sued humbly for her love—but she had none to give, and no prospect of increased worldly prosperity could influence her to utter with less of truthfulness and honesty of soul than she had once spoken them, the marriage vows!

Grace had her treasures still, and there was an unfinished romance connected with her life, of which I would not say she did not at times long to know the conclusion—for she felt it was not concluded.

There were gray hairs—only a very few, my gentle reader—visible among the beautiful brown locks, and the clustering curls Hugh Willson treasured the memory of so well, were all vanished; there was no bloom upon the pleasant face—the blue eyes were less bright—but the “features of the soul” remained unchanged, or if at all changed, only in their nearer approach to perfection. And amid her kindly charities, and the thousand love-inspired duties had Grace forgotten the letter ten years old, and its author! Very far from that; and it had been a source of happiness deeper than she cared to acknowledge even to herself, to look once again on Hugh Willson, and to hear his voice. But none save that one letter had ever reached her from him; he might have forgotten, though that to her seemed a thing impossible. The depths of feeling revealed in that letter might have existed no longer, or at least might have ceased to bear her reflection and image, when he had fully exposed it to the light. He might be dead!

Once or twice she harbored the wild idea of answering his letter, to bid him come back—to assure him that there was at least one who would most heartily welcome him; and at such times Grace could but smile at her own folly—for the wanderer had no settled home, and there was no possibility of knowing where, even for a moment, his abiding place was; and so her natural good sense dispatched that fancy with a multitude of others to the land of shadows and dreams.

There came round in the natural order of things a sacrament Sabbath.

It was one of those heavenly days in the month of all months, that is, the “month of roses,” when,

——“If ever come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays;

Whether we look or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, and see it glisten!

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within that reaches and towers,

And grasping above it blindly for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.”

Thus describes Lowell one of those “perfect days” I am speaking of. (And, by the way, have you yet read that, the most exquisite poem produced in these latter days? If you have not, I prithee leave my romance unfinished, and inflict whatever other penance on yourself you may deem proper for neglecting so long that “gem of the first water,” whether regarded as a luxuriously printed book, or as a poem beyond all praise or—criticism!)

Well, it was on a Sabbath in June, as I began to tell you when the remembrance of “Sir Launfal” startled me from my story-telling proprieties; the windows of the little church were opened wide, and doubtless troops of invisible angels had entered in, to see how the congregation would commemorate His death—and probably the assembly had a faint idea of this, for solemn was the expression of every face, and reverent and humble every voice, that joined in the so beautiful and appropriate responses of the liturgy of “dear mother church!”

In one of the slips nearest the door, a stranger had seated himself shortly after the opening of the service; though his voice joined with those of the congregation in the supplications and thanksgivings, he seemed at times to be lost in other thoughts than those which should fill the minds of them who gather themselves together to worship Jehovah.

He was a man of middle age, and his hair was slightly tinged with gray—exposure, or hardship, or sorrow had made him prematurely old—his form was slightly bent, and his face was brown, as though the burning sunlight of the East had rested long upon it.

When the priest turned to the people at the conclusion of the service of the day, and said⁠—

“Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling”; the stranger arose, but seemed as he did so, overcome with strong emotion; but in a moment more he had mastered it, and followed a portion of the congregation to the altar. And he knelt there beside Grace Lovering, and partook with her the consecrated elements; his hands trembled when they grasped the cup filled with the Saviour’s blood, but I do not think that was because of the emotion arising from the thought that he might be partaking unworthily, so much as from the fact that he was once more standing and kneeling in the village church, where since his boyhood he had not trod; it was because he was kneeling beside a woman who as a child had been his embodied dream of all perfection.

He had sought her amid the many faces totally strange around him; and when his eyes had turned from one to another, and he knew that thus far they had sought in vain, when they had fallen on her face at last, he knew that it was she—the little girl—the woman middle-aged—whom he sought, and a thrill, and a thought of thanksgiving swept through his soul, as he looked on her still so lovely face. He felt that he had come home—he dared to hope that he should never be a wanderer again—and even in that sacred place his wild thoughts finished the romance which had been so long in its narration.

When the congregation went from the little church, and Grace turned alone toward her pleasant cottage home, the eyes of the stranger followed her—and—his feet, as of necessity, followed too. There was very little in the quiet village that seemed familiar and dear to Hugh Willson, as he walked down the almost noiseless street. Prosperity had not come with its years to Romulus, and the little town had, I confess, a decided broken-down appearance; but it was not for love of the village Hugh had sought it; it was not because of its beauty he thought it a very Paradise! He was dreaming still a dream that had haunted him, or rather that he had been dreaming for a score of years, and how, what if this day he must awaken from it forever?

When he had reached the house he had seen the lady enter, he paused a moment, hesitatingly, for the heart of the stern man beat wildly. If it should not prove to be her after all—though he knew that was an idle fear—but, would she care to remember him—must he look upon her, and see her at last slowly and coldly recognize him? Must he listen to her, and then depart again to laugh at his own folly, and to curse at the madness and stupidity of his day-dreaming? He might find her bound by ties lasting as life to another. But if was never decisive, and Hugh Willson must speak with Grace Germain.

He knocked at the door of the cottage, and the widow, who had preceded him by a few moments, answered his call immediately.

“Does a lady called Miss Germain live here?” asked the stranger.

“That was once my name,” replied Grace.

Once, thought Hugh, and he had but little heart to proceed when he heard that answer.

“May I come in and ask of her father and mother? It is many years since I left this place, and I do not find many of my old friends here.”

There was a momentary light illumining the face of the lady as she heard these words, but it passed, and she did not speak; but leading the way into the parlor, she motioned the gentleman to a seat, then she said⁠—

“My father and mother have been dead these many years. I do not wonder that the village seems altered to one who has been long a stranger here, for the little life it once had is now quite gone, and there are but few of the old settlers left here now.”

There was a pause, and the stranger seemed to have forgotten the inquiries he had intended making. While she was speaking he seemed lost; but he was only living so intensely in the present, and the rush and confusion of thought was so great he knew not what to say. The chief thing that he longed to know, was not who had grown rich, and who poor, who was dead, and who married, and who had moved away, but—did Grace Germain remember an old playmate who had given her a rose-bud ever so many years ago?

The longer he thought, only the more embarrassing grew the stranger’s situation. Would she not laugh to hear that he had come, when the summer-time of life was well nigh passed, weary, and worn out with worldly trials and sorrows and doubts, to simply ask a woman if she remembered him?

“I do not know that you remember,” he said at last—but having proceeded thus far he stopped. “Have you ever heard—” he began again, and then he broke off suddenly, seemingly forgetful of the question he had meant to ask. But this hesitation would not do—and the man knew it would not—and so he started up, and, as though the time was short, and they the last words he ever intended uttering, he approached the lady, exclaiming,

“Grace Germain, don’t you remember a boy who went to school here long ago, in the old frame school-house, whose name was Hugh Willson?”

“Yes—yes—I do indeed! How could I have been so stupid! Hugh, I welcome you back with all my heart,” was the frank and generous answer, and Grace and the boy-lover shook hands heartily.

The Rubicon was fairly passed; he was remembered, he was welcome! and in his gratitude Hugh forgot to wonder if Grace had a husband living still, and if he had gone off on a journey! He forgot all, save that the child had grown to be a woman he could both love and honor—and for a moment so complete was his happiness, that the words would not have been an empty sound from his lips, “Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace!”

And what thought Grace as she looked upon the face of which but one feature, the dark and thoughtful eyes, seemed familiar? She thought, “Does he remember the letter he wrote me from Arabia—and was it truth he wrote?”

The Sabbath bell rung vainly in the ears of the long parted boy and girl that afternoon, but at night-fall the wife of Clarence Lovering led the way to the old burial-ground, and showed Hugh Willson the graves of her parents and of her husband. And he on whose arm she leaned then, felt no pang of jealousy when her lip faltered and her eyes wet, as she spoke of the bridegroom of her youth—for Grace had not listened coldly or carelessly to her companion as he had spoken to her such words as these⁠—

“Grace, we are neither of us young any longer. I have grown gray in my hard struggle with life—but there is nothing gray or dead about our hearts. I know that by the strong and joyous beating of my own, I know it by the heavenly peace that marks your life, surrounding you as it were with a very halo of glory. But the passionate glow of feeling is, I am equally confident, with neither of us any more. The noise of the bounding brooks has gone—like the quiet, deep flow of the river is the course of our existence now. The waves leap not so brightly in the sunlight, but still the broad beams of the sun fall down as warmly and as cheerily upon us. And is it too late, because I am old, for me to find a realization of that dream which has haunted me so long? I have been wild and fickle in the eyes of men; perhaps my way of life, could you know it all, has not been such as you would look approvingly upon; but, in the midst of all worldly excitements, I have always borne a talisman in my heart that has preserved me honorable and true—the thought of you, Grace! I have come here, not expecting to find the little girl I left, neither altogether a woman who has known nothing of sorrow and care; I have come to pray that I may, even at this late hour, become your husband, your life-companion. My prayer is fraught with no ordinary hope—it is not the bewildering dream of youth I am now indulging—it is the highest, strongest, noblest desire of my manhood! Have I sought in vain, or must I go forth once more a wanderer, and friendless, with another and dearer image than has heretofore been impressed on my life, the image of the matchless woman I have lost—or rather cannot win?”

And Grace had listened to his words with tears of gratitude; she had given him her hand, and nobly said,

“You have not sought in vain, dear Hugh. I thank God that you are here, and if you again become a wanderer, a pilgrim, ready to give up all but you in this life, will tread beside you! Henceforth, there are no mountains, nor deserts, nor oceans that can divide us—the lengthening shades of years falling around us are grateful and pleasant—the quiet paths of life we will pursue together. Thank God that you are here!”

Grace Lovering was not, it is true, a very youthful bride when she was made Hugh Willson’s wife, but had she been more beautiful than “Grace Greenwood’s” most exquisite dream of womanly loveliness, she had not proved more lovable to the wanderer, who, when the shadows of years were folding round him, found in her a friend, and a wife, and a worshiped ideal!

There were some who laughed, to be sure—there are always some that laugh and poh! at romances in real life—and some there were who said it was all fal de ral, the idea of a man and woman of such an age marrying for love. I only wish in its marvelous “progress” the world had not journeyed up to that icy peak whence all human love, and love matches among humans, is to be regarded as the folly of fools, and the madness of delusion!

Let the miserable woman now reading this page, who in her girlhood wedded wealth—or the wretched man who in his youth was led captive by the deceitful smiles of beauty—let these, if there be any such—and I know very well there are multitudes—look for once within the peaceful cottage where our hero and the dear heroine live, and if they do not speedily begin to think with amaze on their own paltry lives, and wonder when their romance is to begin, then—why then—I will not strive any more to teach the people!

Look you, reader, and more especially if you be young and beautiful, do not sell your birthright for a tasteless mess of pottage—ah, in that case you may as well begin to look for a tragedy, and a fearful kind of denouement, instead of a romance and a pleasant closing of the scene!

And furthermore the Wayside Voice saith not.