She paused upon a rocky cliff that broke the hill side, breathing more freely as if conscious that she had escaped some unwelcome intrusion. A boat upon the river drew her attention, and she saw within it her son and Lina floating pleasantly down the stream together.
"How happy and how young they are!" she said with a gush of gentle affection. "No cares—no broken hopes—no wishes unexpressed—no secrets; oh! in this lies the great happiness of existence. Until he has a secret to keep, man is, indeed, next to the angels."
Mabel sat down upon a fallen tree, covered with a drapery of pale green moss. She watched the boat in a sort of dream, as it drifted toward her. How much of the suffering she endured might yet be saved to the young persons it contained! Was not that an object worth living and enduring for? Might she not renew her youth in them?
Renew her youth? What need was there of that? In all her existence had she ever been so full of life—so vigorous of mind—so capable of the highest enjoyment? In the very prime and glory of all her faculties—wise in experience—strong from many a silent heart-struggle, what could she gain by a return of youth? Nothing! surely nothing! Yet she watched those two young persons with a vague feeling of sadness. They had life before them, a thousand dreamy delusions—a thousand alluring hopes evanescent as the apple blossoms of May, but as sweet also.
Mabel was too noble for envy, but these thoughts subdued her excitement into silent mournfulness. At first, she thought to walk slowly back and meet the young people when they landed, but something withheld her and she sat still, dreamily watching them.
She saw the boat drifting idly upon the current. The gorgeous forest leaves with which it was literally carpeted struck her eyes in rich masses of colors, as if the young people had imprisoned a portion of the sunset around their feet. She could distinguish Ben stooping forward seemingly half asleep upon his oars. All in the boat seemed tranquil and happy, like creatures of another life afloat upon the rivers of paradise; she could almost see their faces—those happy faces that made the fancy still more natural.
As she watched them a strange pain stole to her heart. She rose suddenly to her feet, and sweeping a hand across her eyes as if to clear their vision, cast long searching glances toward the boat, striving to read those young faces afar off, and thus relieve her mind of a powerful suspicion.
"Why has this thought never presented itself before?" she said with a pang of self reproach. "Has this eternal dream blinded me, or am I now mistaken? Poor children—poor Lina—is this cruel destiny to fall on you also?"
The boat came drifting toward her now in the crimson light, again enveloped in purple shadows like those fairy skiffs that glide through our dreams. Mabel watched it till her eyes filled with tears, a strange thing—for she was not a woman given to weeping, save as tears are sometimes the expression of a tender or poetic thought. Pain or wrong were things for her to endure or redress; she never wept over them.
That night the interest which she felt in these young persons blended painfully with memories that had risen, like a sudden storm, in her nature. She felt as if they were destined to carry forth and work out the drama of her own life, and that this agency was just commencing. As she stood thus wrapped in turbulent thoughts, there came through the brushwood a crash of branches and a stir of the foliage louder than the wind could have produced.