“This being whom you deify with your love, my child! what a splendid, what a magnificent nature he must have! what transcendant personal attractions! what an intellect! what a heart! Is it not so? tell me!”
“Ah! no; you are mistaken; these things excite admiration and wonder, they do not of themselves win affection. Oh, no! he of whom you speak, is not so handsome as you are; he has no more mind than you have, and not so much heart—even I admit that.”
“And yet you love him, and can love him.”
“Even so—do you wonder at it? Have not you passed by women—handsome, graceful, accomplished—to fix upon a plain country girl like me?”
“Oh, but not women with your candor, purity and strength of mind. Oh, Kate! what depths of truth and innocence you have revealed in the very confession you have made me! Who else but yourself dared make such a revelation?”
Catherine looked up at the speaker in doubt.
“Go on, dear girl. Tell me that this man adores you, and I will never, while I live, trouble you with myself again.”
“Ah, no! it was nothing like that which I set out to tell you. Ah, no! I only wished to let you know—that your case of disappointed affection is not solitary—that I too have missed life’s crowning joy—the love of one I love. He does not even notice me now. I never permit myself to dream that he will ever love me. Yet I would like to live with him, to serve him—myself unknown, unnoticed, if I might only be near him. I envy the waiting-maids and men, and even the dogs, who are full-feasted every day, with the presence for which my heart starves. I would like to give my life to his service, but I am unnecessary to his smallest need. Well! I cannot do him any good; but I serve one who is dear to him, and so I stay the hunger of my heart. Please do not think ill of me for telling you all this. It would grieve me to have you think any evil of me. I esteem you, and want your esteem. I have done some violence to my instincts in telling you this. Do not think ill of me for doing so. I only do it that you may know you are not the only one in the world who is——not happy.”
“Think ill of you, Catherine! Do anything but adore you—and mourn your loss forever—if lose you I must—oh, Heaven!”
“This life is a tragedy—for always that which is dearest, is lost in it, and it ends in death. The closing scene is the corpse, the shroud, the coffin—and the curtain drops upon the grave—all beyond is hidden—except to the eye of faith. My experience of life has been all darkness, clouds and storm—and the transient gleams of gladness or of hope have been—not like the sunshine, but like the lightning. Yet through all the grief, and gloom, and the tempting doubt, the ‘still, small voice’ of God’s spirit has spoken to my soul, and comforted me.”