CHAPTER VII.

Behold the herbage rich, in pride of June, Pranked with gay flowrets dancing merrily Beneath the sunbeams of the sultry noon, While slumbering in their cells their perfumes lie. But when the scythe sweeps on right sturdily, Laying their sweet heads low, their spirits fling Pure incense on the breeze ere yet they die; So doth the chastening hand of sorrow bring Virtues and graces forth, by joy left slumbering.

_Unpublished Poems._

It was rather more than two years from Alice Mowbray's wedding-day, when George Wells lifted the latch of Master Foster's door, and, closing it after him, walked into the house, seated himself on the polished wooden chair opposite old Sarah's, and said in a hurried voice, "I am come, neighbours,--I am come to tell you a piece of news which I should be loth you should hear from anybody but myself."

Susan's heart died away within her--her head drooped more than ever over her knitting; Dame Foster took off her spectacles, and, wiping them, laid them within the sacred book from which she had been reading some texts to her husband and her child; old Nicholas half turned himself upon his settle: but none spoke. Susan felt that the silence must be distressing to George; and exerting herself the first, she replied, "If it is any news, George, that concerns yourself, you may be sure there are no friends who will be more rejoiced to hear of any good likely to befall you, or more grieved to hear of any misfortune. You have scarce any older friends than father, and mother, and myself; so you need not be afraid to speak."

"Thank you, Susan, thank you; that's just like you. I was sure you would take it so. And yet, after all that has passed between us, I felt--I don't know how I felt. But it seems strange I should marry anybody else."

"I gave you back your word, George, and this is what I have long expected; and long tried to make up my mind to," she added, with some effort. "I could not expect you to go on always tending upon a poor blind girl like me. 'Tis better, much better, than getting any ways unsteady. God knows, I have not a word to say against your marrying Jane Dixon."

"Thank you, Susan, thank you," he repeated; "I feel easier now! Susan, this has been a great trouble to me; for I could not bear deceiving you like, and yet I did not know how to tell you there was any courting going on between me and Jane."

"You know, George, I gave you back your word from the first."

"Yes, yes, so you did; but for a long time I did not believe I should ever think of any girl but you: but I do not know how it is, a man wants a home--does he not, Master Foster?--and he wants a wife to see to him. And then, Jane Dixon, she's a tight lass; and I don't know how it was, I never came home from work without meeting her going of an errand somewhere; and then she is a bustling girl, and one who will keep things nice and tidy in a poor man's house."

"Her mother was a thrifty, bustling body, and I hope she will make you a good wife, George," said Dame Foster, in a tone which she meant should be very kind; but her thoughts were so much occupied with Susan, that she had no feeling to spare for any one else.

"I wish you happiness, George," said Nicholas; "you have behaved very well by my poor girl; and, if it had not been for her affliction, you would have married her, and made her a good husband, I warrant. It is the will of God it should all be as it is."

"Thank you kindly, Master Foster."

Meanwhile Susan had been feeling upon the little shelf on the wall close to where she sat, for a small book, which at length she found. "George," she said, "I have a book here which I ought to give you back. 'Tis those Watts's Hymns which you gave to me a few days before Miss Alice's wedding;" she could not repress a sigh. "If you remember, you wrote both our Christian names upon it,--and then said you would add the surname when one name would do for both. I don't think it is right I should keep that book, and you the husband of another; and yet I could never find it in my heart to destroy it. Besides, I can't read all the beautiful hymns that are in it; but you can, and sometimes it may do you good perhaps to read them."

George indeed remembered giving Susan the little book: he had that day obtained the promise of Master Mumford's house, and he had that day gained her consent to their being speedily asked in church. They had then written their names in the manner described by Susan, and had talked over their future prospects, with the assurance of soon being indissolubly united.

As George took the book from Susan's hands, he felt them tremble. He was scarcely more composed himself. The appearance of the little volume, the sight of the writing, annihilated for a moment the intervening two years; and he saw Susan as she then stood beside him, radiant with health, joy, and tenderness.

Jane Dixon would not have been pleased had she known with what pain he received this present, with what regret he looked back upon the image thus conjured up to his mind. The tears were in his eyes as he held it. "If it is not right for you to keep the book, Susan, I do not think it is right I should; for I am sure I shall never look upon it without wishing,--without remembering----Oh! Susan, how happy we were when I gave you that book!" His voice broke, and he passed the back of his hand several times over his eyes.

Strong emotion in a stout and sturdy peasant, whose feelings we are sure are thoroughly genuine, and in which we are satisfied there is no touch of sickly, morbid sensibility, is always an affecting subject of contemplation. It was almost too much for old Sarah, who now wept like a child; while Susan experienced among the poignant regrets which overpowered her, a mixture of satisfaction to find she was so tenderly recollected. "I did not think you would have minded it, George; but if it makes you think too much of by-gone days, why, perhaps, 'twill be best you should give the book to mother to keep. I would not wish you to think any more about me now; it would be no ways right." But it was a comfort to Susan, though she was not aware of it, that she had to tell him not to think about her.

George still held the book, awkwardly shifting it from hand to hand: at length he held it out; "Take it, dame," he said, "take it; for I'm going to be married to Jane Dixon, and I must not think any more about Susan, nor about the days that are passed and gone; it won't do," and he pushed the book towards Dame Foster, and abruptly opened the door. "God bless you, George," and Susan held out her hand. He had closed the latch, and was gone. Her hand dropped to her side, but she was not mortified. She scarcely knew how it was that she felt so much less miserable than she expected she would have done, when George was about to be married to another,--when an eternal barrier was about to be placed between them,--when she had broken the last link that bound them to each other. Alas! it must be confessed that if the causes of her more resigned frame of mind were accurately analyzed, there might be discovered, among better feelings, a slight admixture of vanity, which had been soothed by finding George still remembered her with affection, and by feeling that he did not love Jane Dixon so well as he had once loved her.

Susan was a good and a generous girl; but in her nature there was a portion of that quality which, although subdued and chastened by heavy affliction, is seldom entirely rooted out of the human heart. She did not wish George to be unhappy on her account; she heartily hoped Jane would prove a good wife to him; and yet, after having experienced considerable mortification in the course of his unavoidable neglect of her, it was a balm to poor frail human nature to feel that she was not relinquished without a pang.

"My poor girl," said Sarah, after she had watched George's hurried steps along the road, over the stile, and into the fields beyond the village,--"my poor girl! I must no longer pray, as I have done, never to see another sun rise when once my poor Nicholas is in his grave, for what will you do without me? As long as George was single, I felt you would never want a friend; but now I must hope to be spared still for your sake! I once thought, when you were George's wife, and my good man was at rest, that old Sarah Foster's task would be finished, and that she might pray the Almighty to release her from these pains. But God's will be done!" and she bowed her head in meek submission.

George Wells had instinctively avoided the village; he dreaded to meet his betrothed. Susan had risen up to his mind as she had been in her best days: those days once more became so present to him, that all his former love seemed to return with fresh force, and he wondered how he had become entangled with Jane Dixon. But a few weeks more, and she would be his wife; and among the lower orders that name is more sacred than among the higher, where the gradations between virtue and vice are softened down, and the line of demarcation not so absolute. He remembered that he had promised to walk with Jane that very evening, and he somewhat slowly and unwillingly returned towards the village by a path which led nearer the dwelling of his new love. He had not advanced far when he met her gaily approaching in search of him. He was scarcely yet in a frame of mind to meet her gladly, and he wished she had not been quite so affectionate in her disposition towards him. She certainly was not coy. He had never been called upon to sue; he had but to receive the advances she was disposed to make. "Poor girl!" he thought, "it is not her fault, if I once liked Susan so much. She has always been partial to me: I must make her a good husband. It would never do to be anywise unkind to her now; besides, the parish begins to talk, and the best thing we can do is to be married out of hand." And the result was that they agreed he should wait on the minister, and inform him they wished to be asked in church.