Her opposition made him believe in his love for Rose, but shortly the beauty and the charm of Grace, the second daughter, about sixteen, dissipated that belief, although he had pledged himself with word and ring to Rose.
Grace, mortified by the rivalry between her mother and sister, and conscious of a growing passion for the man who had, unintentionally, crept into the lives of three women in one household bound by the closest ties of blood, fled the place, and went down the broad river to a little town, where she found quiet and friendly shelter in the home of a relative. It was a curious place, very old, and in the heart of evergreens. There was a young girl, Lydia, who was much older, had loved, and knew that priceless art of bringing comfort to those who were loving either wisely or too well. Letters, books, and gifts came from Basil bearing one burden—his love for Grace. The mother, more jealous of Rose than of Grace, consented to his marriage with either, and fell into a state of despondency which made quick and mysterious inroads upon her hitherto excellent health.
When Grace, being called home by the alarming state of her mother's health, parted with Lydia, she said:
"My duty is clear; I can not be the rival of my mother and Rose. I love him, but I must give him up." And so she did, although the engagement between Rose and Basil was broken and never renewed.
Rumor said cruel things about Basil: that he had wasted their beautiful estate and enriched himself out of their many possessions. Anyhow, they left their mansion on the hill-top, and it was sold to an institution of learning, and the grounds were divided and subdivided into lots. The mother never recovered. After an illness of several years she died suddenly at some winter resort, with the old name of Basil on her lips that formed the word and then were forever still. Rose and Grace could look upon those familiar features and behold the trace of beauty which time and disease had tenderly spared. But Mary, the third daughter, blind from her birth, could only feel the face of her beloved and kiss the lips that could no longer speak her name. Blind! and without a mother, even if she had been foolish for her years, and had, in an hour of human weakness, yielded to a love which was useless, out of the question, unnatural. She was twelve, yet the little blind maid was old enough to know her loss, to feel her sorrow.
Rose, cold, selfish, unsympathetic, lamenting the loss of a lover whom she had no power to hold more than the death of her mother, feeling no love for the sister who had made for her sake a useless sacrifice, was not a desirable companion for the little blind sister.
Grace, upon whom the care of the child had fallen these latter years, and who had been faithful and loving to her charge, had begun to put worldly things from her, and when that long-expected but sudden death came upon them, she resolved, after much meditation and prayer, to enter some holy order and lead a life dedicated to the Master.
Clad in the robes of a Carmelite nun, she may have been too unmindful of the little blind one who had clung to her and plead with her not to leave her alone with Rose. For after all, what is raiment even if it be fine, aye, purple and fine linen; what is food, even if it be dainty like the ambrosia of the Gods; what is warmth, what is comfort, what are all these things if the heart be cold, naked and hungry? Grace had provided for her bodily comforts, but she had failed to fill her own place left vacant with some heart that would be kind and loving to Mary, blind and helpless.
After Grace entered the Carmelite Convent, which was many miles away from their old home, Rose and Mary returned to the big smoky city, and were swallowed up in the multitude of people who exist in buildings and houses, where men and women huddle together and have, as they had, a certain amount of comfort, but lose their identity, and are finally swept away into that great stagnant pool of obscurity where existence in great cities goes on and on without either ebb or flow.
The little blind maid was lonely and sick at heart. The noise and the cry of the street smote her to the earth. The people in the house where they lived, were as kind as they knew how to be; but how little they knew about kindness, and nothing about peace and quiet. She felt that she was a burden to Rose, and she knew that Rose could never be any thing to her. Those poor, sightless eyes shed tears of homesickness for Grace, and she was sorely oppressed with the desire to be with her again and feel the touch of those cool, quiet hands against her face and over her eyelids that so often burned with pain, and to hear that voice, which was never loud and harsh. But what could she do? This is what she did: With her own hand, unaided, she wrote a letter to the Pope at Rome, and gave it with a piece of silver to an honest house-maid, who carried it to her priest for proper direction, which he wrote upon it, marveling much when he read her earnest words of entreaty, begging the Pope to please send back her Sister Grace from the convent, because she was a little girl, "blind, helpless and very lonely."