The Old Stone House Part 27

"Ah!" said Graham lightly; "you ladies change your minds so rapidly that it is difficult to follow you. But it is your privilege, I know, Farewell, then, Miss Warrington. Life is long,--we may meet again."

"Good-bye, Mr. Marr," said Sibyl, hardly noticing his departure.

As the young man disappeared, Aunt Faith spoke; "Are you in earnest, Sibyl? Do you really wish to visit Mr. Leslie to-night?"

"I am in earnest, and I _must_ go, Aunt Faith. Do not try to prevent it."

"But there may be danger for you, dear."

"Hugh has seen him, and am I to be kept back?" cried Sibyl pa.s.sionately. "I must go! I will go! Aunt Faith, do not desert me now!"

"I am not deserting you, poor child," said Aunt Faith, rising and putting her arms around her niece with motherly affection. "If you wish to see Mr. Leslie to-night, I will go with you. You approve of your sister's wish, Hugh?"

"Yes," said Hugh decidedly. "Sibyl, you are right at last."

They found Mr. Leslie unconscious and breathing heavily; two physicians were in attendance, and a nurse sat by the bedside.

"He does not know me," whispered Sibyl, clinging convulsively to Aunt Faith, as the sufferer opened his eyes and looked blankly at them.

"No, dear, he is unconscious," replied Aunt Faith, herself much moved at the sight of one whom she had so lately seen full of young life, stricken down almost to death.

The doctors were watching their patient closely; they expected a crisis before morning.

"I shall stay," said Sibyl, quietly taking off her hat and sitting down on the sofa.

Aunt Faith spoke a few words of objection, but the mute appeal of Sibyl's eyes silenced her; she said no more, but sitting down by her niece, took her cold hand and held it in both her own. She had felt sorrow herself, and she could feel for others; she knew that in Sibyl's heart the depths were broken up.

Hugh went back to the old stone house and returned about midnight; from that time on, there was silence in the sick-chamber, and anxious eyes watched the unconscious face with painful interest. The night seemed endless; only those who have watched by a sick bed can know how minutes can lengthen themselves! As the gray twilight of dawn came into the room the sick man moved restlessly upon his pillow and moaned. Sibyl's heart throbbed; any change seemed for the better. But one of the physicians after bending over the patient, shook his head gravely.

"Let us pray," said Aunt Faith in a low tone, and, falling upon her knees, she bowed her head in silent prayer. Sibyl knelt beside her, and, after a moment, Hugh too joined them, and throwing his arm around his sister, drew her to his side.

"Oh, Hugh, I cannot bear it!" she murmured; "he will die,--he will never know,--and I--" here her voice was broken by stifled sobs and low moans of anguish, strangely touching in the proud, self-reliant Sibyl.

Hugh held his sister in his arms, and soothed her as one would soothe a child. From that hour Sibyl's coldness left her never to return.

As the first sunbeams brightened the sky, Mr. Leslie again opened his eyes, the doctors bent over him, and it seemed to Aunt Faith as if she could hear all the hearts in the room throbbing aloud in the intense anxiety of the moment.

"The worst is over," whispered Doctor Gregory, stepping back and shaking hands with Aunt Faith; "we shall bring him through, now, I think."

Sibyl sat with her head hidden on Hugh's shoulder; she heard the doctor's words, but a sudden timidity had come over her. "Let us go,"

she whispered, turning towards the door.

But Hugh had been watching the sick man.

"He is conscious; he knows us!" he said suddenly, and leading his sister forward, he left her at the bedside, pale and trembling with joyful emotion.

"Sibyl," said Mr. Leslie in a faint voice, "is it you? Have you come to me at last, dear?"

"Yes, John," said Sibyl, bending over him with tears in her eyes. "I have brought myself and my life to you,--if you care for them."

"If?" said Mr. Leslie, with the ghost of a smile on his pale face; "as if there was any doubt--" but here the doctors interfered, and the rest of the sentence was postponed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER

Mr. Leslie improved slowly; when he was able to leave his room most of his days of enforced idleness were spent in the shaded parlor of the old stone house, or riding through the narrow country lanes, sometimes with all the cousins, sometimes with Sibyl alone. A friend had come from the interior of the State to take charge of the chapel during July and August, for the physicians had forbidden any active work during that time; but, although Mr. Vinton preached and attended to the duties of the position, Mr. Leslie retained all his interest in the congregation, and his people felt, that he was with them in spirit, hour by hour, and day by day. They came to him also,--came in greater numbers and with more open affection than ever before; they showed their interest in many different ways,--and the young pastor's heart was filled with joy at these evidences of love from the flock for which he had labored.

"It takes sickness or affliction to bring hidden love and sympathy to the surface," he said, one afternoon, as he sat in the parlor with Aunt Faith, Hugh, Bessie, and Sibyl. "We do not see the rainbow until the storm comes; and so people may live on for years in prosperity, and never know, save by intuition, the deep affection in each other's hearts. But when sorrow strikes them, then love comes to the surface, doubly precious and comforting in the hour of trial."

"But, Mr. Leslie," said Hugh, "would it not be far better for the world if people were taught to express their love and sympathy at other times as well as in the house of affliction and sickness? Is there any reason why we should all go on through life in cold silence, living in the same house with those we love the best, and taking everything 'for granted,' and leaving it 'for granted' also? Why!

people may live and die without ever knowing the great joy of expressing how much they love, or of hearing in return how much they are loved, so hard is it to break down these barriers of reserve."

"We are tongue-tied, here, Hugh. We do not know how to speak the language of the heavenly country, and our best efforts are but stammering, half-expressed utterances. It is a great mercy, however, that the touch of sickness, or affliction, seems for the moment to loosen the bonds, and allow us a few sentences of the heavenly love."

"It is indeed," said Aunt Faith. "I remember in the darkest hours of my affliction, people with whom I had but slight acquaintance came to me with tender sympathy, and kind messages were sent from many whom I had always thought cold, and even disagreeable."

"Still," said Hugh, "I think it would be better if people tried to express their love more freely, without waiting until the household is clouded with grief."

"It would certainly be better, but it may not be possible," said Mr.

Leslie; the world has gone on in the same old way for many centuries, and I am inclined to think, Hugh, that this free expression of love will only be given to us in another life. It will form one of the blessings of heaven."

"What is heaven?" said Hugh abruptly.

"It is perfect peace," said Aunt Faith.

"It is wonderful new life and hope," said Bessie.

"It is love," said Sibyl.

"It is all this and more," said Mr. Leslie reverently. "Speculations are useless, and our time should be too full of earnest labor to allow us to indulge in them. We should be content to leave it to our Maker, who has made even this world so beautiful, and this life, rightly used, so glorious."

July gave place to August, and the family of cousins, into whose circle Mr. Leslie had been received, lived a happy life in the old stone house. The heat of the dog-days was tempered by the lake breeze.

At ten in the morning it came sweeping over the water from Canada, and men walking through the hot streets, felt its gentle coolness on their foreheads, and took off their straw hats with a sigh of relief. In the evening it came again, rustling through the trees with a refreshing sound as though the leaves were reviving from their parched stillness; people came out to meet it, the piazzas and door-steps were crowded, and all the closed blinds were thrown wide open to catch the blessed coolness which promised refreshing sleep.

"You dwellers by the lake-sh.o.r.e know nothing of the real August heat in the lowlands," said Mr. Vinton, one evening as he sat among a group of visitors on the piazza of the old stone house. "Here the lake breeze is invariable, but a hundred miles south, days and nights pa.s.s with alternate blazing heat and close, lifeless darkness, the latter even more trying than the former. The country where I live is the richest agricultural land in the State; it is a valley with a broad, slow river rolling through it, the very water dark and sluggish with the fertility of the soil. As long as the grain is growing, there is some vitality in the air in spite of the heat, but when the harvest comes, and field after field is shorn, it seems as though the superfluous richness rose from the earth into the air, and filled it with heavy rankness. The sun shines through a haze in the daytime, and the moon through a mist at night; everybody and everything is languid.

One goes to bed oppressed with fatigue, sleeps heavily, and rises without refreshment; there is no fresh morning air, nothing but a weary looking forward to the next twelve hours of heat."

"What a forlorn description!" said Mr. Gay, laughing. "Is this all you can say for the great, rich state of Ohio?"

"It's very richness brings about what I am describing," said Mr.

Vinton. "But perhaps some of your eastern farmers would endure the Ohio dog-days for the sake of the miles of level grain-fields without a stone, without a break of any kind, which extend through the midland counties. When I first came West, I was overpowered with homesickness for the hills of New England; the endless plains were hateful to me, and I fairly pined to see a rock, or a narrow, winding road. While in this mood, I happened to be riding in a stage-coach through one of the midland counties in company with two New England farmers. They had never been West before, and they were lost in astonishment and admiration at the sight of the level fields on either side of the broad, straight road, stretching away to the right and the left, unbroken by the slightest elevation. 'This country is worth farming in,' said number one; 'Ethan would admire to see it, but he'd hardly believe it, I guess, without seeing.'

"'Not a stone nor a rock nowhere; none of them plaguey hills neither,'