Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

Ever since the day of the play when she had seen her future husband frown, she had looked forward to her marriage with terror.

He had not come after that, but instead wrote her long letters full of plans about the house, their house, that they were to occupy together. The letters impressed that thought most deeply and made the whole hateful to her. It grew to seem that it was his house, and she would be his prisoner in it. Yet somehow he had succeeded in impressing her with the feeling that she was pledged to him in sacred honor, and that it would be a dreadful thing to break a tie like that. This was made stronger by her father's letters, which now grew more frequent, as if he sought to atone to his motherless child for the wrong he had done her.

Just the day before her home-going there came one of these letters, in which he told her that everything had been prepared for her marriage to take place within a week after her arrival. He told her of the trousseau which his wife had prepared for her, which was as elaborate and complete as such an outfit could be for one of her station in life. He also spoke about the dignity of her origin, and with unwonted elaboration commended her judgment in selecting so old and so fine a family as that of the house of Winthrop with which to ally herself. He added that it would have pleased her mother's family, and that Mr. Winthrop was one of his oldest and most valued friends.

Somehow that letter seemed to Dawn to put the seal of finality upon her fate. There was no turning back now. Just as her father used to compel her to go upstairs alone when he discovered that she was afraid of the dark, so she felt that if he once discovered her dislike for her future husband he would but hasten the marriage, and be in league with her husband against her always.

When the time came to leave the school, she clung with such fervor about the neck of the impassive Friend Ruth that the astonished lady almost lost her breath, and a strange wild thrill went through her unmotherly bosom, as of something that might have been and was lost. She looked earnestly down into the beautiful face of the girl who had so often defied her rules, and saw an appeal in those lovely eyes to which she would most certainly have responded had she understood, for she was a good woman and always sought to do her best.

But the boat left at once, and clinging arms had perforce to be removed. Once on the deck with the others, Dawn looked back at Friend Ruth as impassively as always, though the usually calm face of the woman searched her out with troubled glance, still wondering what had come over her wild young pupil. Somehow, as she watched the steamer plough away until Dawn was a mere blur with the others, Friend Ruth could not help being glad that the beautiful dark curls had never been cut.

The day was perfect, and the scenery along the Palisades had never looked more beautiful, yet Dawn saw nothing of it. She sat by the rail looking gloomily down into the water, and a curious fancy seized her that she would like to float out there on the water forever and get away from life. Then she began to consider the possibility of running away.

It was not the first time this thought had entered her mind. The week before she left the school, she had thought of it seriously, and even planned the route, but always at night there had come that fearful dream of her future husband following her, and bringing her home to a life-long punishment.

She had almost got her courage up to the point of deciding to disappear in the crowd at Albany, and so elude the people with whom she was expected to journey to her home, when, to her dismay, she looked down at the landing-place where they were stopping, a few miles below Albany, and saw her father coming on board the boat. He had not expected to be able to meet her and had written that she was to come with acquaintances of his. Her heart stood still in panic, and for a moment she looked wildly at the rail of the steamer, as if she might climb over and escape. Then in a moment her father had seen her and stood beside her. He stooped and kissed her forehead coldly, almost shyly. This startled her, too, for he had not kissed her since the days before her mother was sent away, and a strange, sharp pain went through her heart, a pang of things that might have been. She looked up in wonder. She did not know how like her dead mother she had grown.

But the stern face was cold as ever, and his voice conveyed no smallest part of the emotion he felt at sight of her lovely face.