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Page 33
"Oh, papa! papa! look down on your little Beth!" These words were in her
eyes as she lifted them to the evening sky, her tears falling silently.
She was following the old path by the road-side, where she used to go
for the milk every evening, when a firm step startled her.
"Arthur! Good evening. I'm so glad to see you again!"
She looked beautiful for a moment, with the tears hanging from her
lashes, and the smile on her face.
"I called to see you at the parsonage, but you were just going up the
street, so I thought I might be pardoned for coming too."
They were silent for a few moments. It was so like old times to be
walking there together. The early stars shone faintly; but the clouds
were still pink in the west; not a leaf stirred, not a breath; no sound
save a night-bird calling to its mate in the pine-wood yonder, and the
bleat of lambs in the distance. Presently Arthur broke the silence with
sweet, tender words of sorrow for her loss.
"I should have written to you if I had known, but I was sick in the
hospital, and I didn't--"
"Sick in the hospital! Why, Arthur, have you been ill? What was the
matter?"
"A light typhoid fever. I went to the Wesleyan College, at Montreal,
after that, so I didn't even know you had come back to college."
"To the Wesleyan? I thought you were so attached to Victoria! Whatever
made you leave it, Arthur?"
He flushed slightly, and evaded her question.
"Do you know, it was so funny, Arthur, you roomed in the very house
where I boarded last fall, and I never knew a thing about it till
afterward? Wasn't it odd we didn't meet?"
Again he made some evasive reply, and she had an odd sensation, as of
something cold passing between them. He suddenly became formal, and they
turned back again at the bridge where they used to sit fishing, and
where Beth never caught anything (just like a girl); they always went to
Arthur's hook. The two forgot their coldness as they walked back, and
Beth was disappointed that Arthur had an engagement and could not come
in. They lingered a moment at the gate as he bade her good-night. A
delicate thrill, a something sweet and new and strange, possessed her as
he pressed her hand! Their eyes met for a moment.
"Good-bye for to-night, Beth."
May was singing a soft lullaby as she came up the walk. Only a moment!
Yet what a revelation a moment may bring to these hearts of ours! A
look, a touch, and something live is throbbing within! We cannot speak
it. We dare not name it. For, oh, hush, 'tis a sacred hour in a woman's
life.
Beth went straight to her room, and sat by the open window in the
star-light. Some boys were singing an old Scotch ballad as they passed
in the street below; the moon was rising silvery above the blue Erie;
the white petals of apple-blossoms floated downward in the night air,
and in it all she saw but one face--a face with great, dark, tender
eyes, that soothed her with their silence. Soothed? Ah, yes! She felt
like a babe to-night, cradled in the arms of something, she knew not
what--something holy, eternal and calm. And _this_ was love. She had
craved it often--wondered how it would come to her--and it was just
Arthur, after all, her childhood's friend, Arthur--but yet how changed!
He was not the same. She felt it dimly. The Arthur of her girlhood was
gone. They were man and woman now. She had not known this Arthur as he
was now. A veil seemed to have been suddenly drawn from his face, and
she saw in him--her ideal. There were tears in her eyes as she gazed
heavenward. She had thought to journey to heathen lands alone,
single-handed to fight the battle, and now--"Arthur--Arthur!" she called
in a soft, sweet whisper as she drooped her smiling face. What mattered
all her blind shilly-shally fancies about his nature not being poetic?
There was more poetry buried in that heart of his than she had ever
dreamed. "I can never, never marry Arthur!" she had often told herself.
She laughed now as she thought of it, and it was late before she slept,
for she seemed to see those eyes looking at her in the darkness--so
familiar, yet so new and changed! She awoke for a moment in the grey
light just before dawn, and she could see him still; her hand yet
thrilled from his touch. She heard the hoarse whistle of a steamer on
the lake; the rooks were cawing in the elm-tree over the roof, and she
fell asleep again.
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