"Poor John! Well, just wait a bit, and I will open the door;" and darting back into the room, Gertrude shuffled away a picture on which she had been painting, and then threw open the door of her studio.
"Poor John, what is it?" and Gertrude seated herself on the lounge beside him, and laid her cheek against his, "what is it, John?"
"I am so dissatisfied and vexed with myself," said her brother, "I thought I was disinterested and unselfish, and I am not. I have caught myself hoping that Rose's dream might not prove true—that Vincent might never appear, so that I might win her—and she so bound up in him, too! I am a disgrace to my manhood, Gertrude, a poor, miserable, vacillating, unhappy wretch."
"No, you are not," said Gertrude, kissing his moist eyelids; "only a great soul would have made the generous confession which has just passed your lips; a more ignoble nature would have excused and palliated it, perhaps denied its existence; you are generous, and noble, and good, and I only wish you were not my brother, that I might marry you myself;" and she tried to force a smile upon John's face, by peeping archly into it.
"Do not jest with me, Gertrude; comfort me if you can. I too have had my dream; I am about to lose Rose. I can not tell you about it now, it is too painfully vivid. How can I live without love? without Rose's love? Tell me how you learned, Gertrude, to tame down that fiery heart of yours."
Gertrude only replied by her caresses; for, in truth, her heart was too full.
There is an outward life visible to all; there is an inward life known only to our own souls, and Him who formed them.
Was Gertrude's heart "tamed?"
Ah, there were moments when she threw aside book, pallet, and pencil, when she could listen only to its troubled, mournful wailings, because there was nothing in all the wide earth, that could satisfy its cravings. Only in the Infinite can such a spirit find rest; and leaning her head upon John's shoulder, Gertrude sang:
"Oh, ask thou, hope thou not too much