Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 17

Natalie took her hand and held it. "And you believe that religion insures happiness?" She was willing to hold on to this topic.

"I know it. The peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth understanding. Do not turn from it, Natalie."

"I do not. I am not a scoffer. I think that I, too, could love G.o.d, only I am densely ignorant."

"But you can be enlightened. Father Cameril----"

Natalie smiled. "I hardly think he would be the teacher I would choose.

I would prefer you."

"To enlighten your ignorance! I am myself ignorant. I believe--I know no more." This sounded prettily from pretty lips, and Paula was honest; but, as a matter of fact, she had some theological pretensions, a truth which she for the moment forgot.

"How is that possible?" asked the infidel. "I could believe, if I knew."

"We cannot understand everything."

"No--almost nothing, therefore----"

"We have a revelation."

"Which reveals nothing to me. I wish it did."

"Natalie, you demand too much. We are not permitted to know everything.

We cannot be divine."

"And yet we can speak very positively; as if, indeed, we knew it all--some of us. But if n.o.body knows, n.o.body can be sure."

"I cannot argue; but I can tell you who tells me. G.o.d Himself. G.o.d speaks to the heart."

"Paula," cried the other, with startling earnestness, "I, too, have a heart. Teach me how to believe, and of all the wise you will be the wisest. Do I not know that life is barren? that the love of man cannot fill the heart? Ah! Paula, if that can do it, teach me the love of G.o.d!"

The tone rose almost to a cry. Paula was awed as a perception of the truth came upon her that here was a skeptic with religious longings greater than her own. "Natalie," she murmured, hiding her face on the shoulder of her companion, "we are told to ask. Pray, Natalie, to the One that knows it all."

"And will you pray for me?"

"I do."

"And do you pray for Mark?"

"Surely."

"And you know that my prayers will be answered?"

"I know it--in G.o.d's good time."

"I will pray, Paula."

They kissed one another, as though sealing a compact. No doubt Paula breathed a pet.i.tion for her who, still in darkness, craved for light.

Natalie prayed for the happiness of Mark Claghorn, and that she might forget him and resign him to the saint whose lips she pressed.

Then she went home. In the hall of the White House she met Tabitha.

"Come!" she exclaimed, seizing that elderly damsel about the waist.

"_Dansons_, Tabitha; hop, skip! _Sur le pont d'Avignon on y danse, on y danse!_" and she trilled her lay and whirled the astonished spinster around until both were breathless.

"My sakes! Have you gone crazy?" exclaimed Tabitha.

"Come to my senses!" replied Natalie, laughing merrily.

"I never saw you so French before," was Tabitha's comment.

CHAPTER XVI.

WARBLINGS IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND SNARES FOR A SOUL.

Achsah Claghorn, for many years lonely, with maternal instincts steadily suppressed, had found the first opportunity of a long life to gratify cravings of which she had been until now unconscious. Coyly, even with trembling, she sought the love of her grand-niece, being herself astonished, as much as she astonished others, by an indulgent tenderness seemingly foreign to her character. Grandmothers, though once severe as mothers, are often overfond in their last maternal role, and it may be that Miss Claghorn pleased herself by the fiction of a relationship which, though not actually existent, had some foundation in long-past conditions.

"Did your father never speak of me?" she asked.

"Often, Aunt. Especially of late years, after we had met Cousin Jared."

"But not with much affection?"

Natalie was somewhat at a loss. "He said you were his second mother,"

was her reply.

"Poor Susan--that was your grandmother, my dear. She was a gentle, loving creature. I think now, though perhaps I did not at the time, that 'Liph was lonely after she died. Ours was a dull house," she continued, after a pause. "Your grandfather lived more in heaven than on earth, which made it gloomy for us that didn't. Saints are not comfortable to live with, and 'Liph was often in disgrace. I hope I was never hard to a motherless boy, but--but----"

"I am sure you were not. My father never said so."

"Yet he forgot me. Perhaps it was pleasanter not to remember."

There was no reply to make. Natalie knew that her father had been so well content to forget his relatives that, until the unexpected meeting in Germany, her own knowledge of the Claghorns had been very vague.

"'Liph did write me when he married, even promised to come and see me, but he never came."

Miss Claghorn forgot the fact that in reply to her nephew's letter she had deplored his connection with Romanism and had urged instant attention to the duty of converting his wife. The philosopher may have justly enough felt that there could be but little sympathy between himself and one whose congratulations on his nuptials were in part a wail of regret, in part an admonitory sermon.

"You know, Aunt, he did intend to come."

"To see Mrs. Joe--well, no doubt he would have been glad to see me, too.

I am sorry we never met after so many years."

Besides the tenderness displayed to Natalie alone, there were evidences of change in the mistress of the White House, apparent to all; and while these were properly ascribed to the new inmate, the fact that that influence could work such wonders excited surprise. The neighbors were astonished to behold the novel sight of perennially open parlor windows, and thought with misgiving upon the effect of sunshine on Miss Claghorn's furniture. At times strange sounds issued from the hitherto silent dwelling, operatic melodies, or s.n.a.t.c.hes of chansons, trilled forth in a foreign tongue. "The tunes actually get into my legs,"

observed Tabitha to a neighbor. "The sobber de mong pare'd make an elder dance," an a.s.sertion which astonished the neighbor less than Miss Cone's familiarity with the French language. But comment was actually stricken dumb when both Miss Claghorn and Tabitha appeared in public with sprigs of color in their headgear and visible here and there upon their raiment.