CHAPTER XIV.
“High minds of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse.”—Scott.
“Lord, at Thy feet ashamed I lie,
Upward I dare not look—
Pardon my sins before I die,
And blot them from Thy book.”—Hymn.
When Mittie awoke from the wild dream of delirium, she was weak as a new-born infant. For a few moments she imagined herself the inhabitant of another world. The deep quietude of the apartment, its soft, subdued, slumberous light, the still, watching figures seated by her bedside, formed so strong a contrast to the gloomy cell, with its chill, damp air, and glimmering lamp—its rough keeper and agitated inmate—that cell which, it appeared to her, she had just quitted. Two fair young forms, with arms interlaced, and heads inclined towards each other, the one with locks of rippling gold, the other of soft, wavy brown, seemed watching angels to her unclosing eyes. She felt a soft pressure on her faintly throbbing pulse, and knew that on the other side, opposite the watching angels, a manly figure was bending over her. She could not turn her head to gaze upon it, but there was a benignity in its presence which soothed and comforted her. Other forms were there also, but they faded away in a soft, hazy atmosphere, and her drooping eye-lids again closed.
In the long, tranquil slumber that followed, she passed the crisis of her disease, and the strife-worn, wandering spirit returned to the throne it had abdicated.
And now Mittie became conscious of the unbounded tenderness and care lavished upon her by every member of the household, and of the unwearied attentions of Arthur Hazleton. Helen herself could not have been more kindly, anxiously nursed. She, who had believed herself an object of indifference or dislike to all, was the central point of solicitude now. If she slept, every one moved as if shod with velvet, the curtains were gently let down, all occupation suspended, lest it should disturb the pale slumberer;—if she waked, some kind hand was ever ready to smooth her pillow, wipe the dew of weakness from her brow, and administer the cordial to her wan lips.
“Why do you all nurse me so tenderly?” asked she of her step-mother, one night, when she was watching by her. “Me, who have never done any thing for others?”
“You are sick and helpless, and dependent on our care. The hand of God is laid upon you, and whosoever He smites, becomes a sacred object in the Christian’s eyes.”
“Then it is not from love you minister to my weakness. I thought it could not be.”