Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

As the young man in the front seat of the coach sat and frowned at the shining chestnut backs of the horses, he was conning over and over a thought that his sister had put into his heart, and each time it ran like sweet fire along his veins, until it began to seem a possibility, and fairly took his breath away.

The day was wonderful. The air was fine and rare, the sky clear, with not a fleck of cloud to mar the blue—a blue that fairly called attention to itself as being bluer than ever before. But not one of all that little company of wedding-goers saw it.

The foliage everywhere was washed fresh for the occasion by a shower that had passed in the night. Diamonds strung themselves from grass-blade to grass-blade, and begemmed even the mullein stalks. Late dandelions flared and gleamed, shy sweet-brier smiled here and there by the roadside in delicate pink cups, inviting the bees. The birds in the trees were singing everywhere, and the sweet winds lifted branches and played a subdued accompaniment. To the soul of the young man, their music came in happy harmonies, and, while he was not conscious of it, little by little they began to play him a kind of wedding march, the joyous melody of his thoughts, now glad, now fearful, yet ever growing sweeter and more sure of the victorious climax.

He grew presently unconscious of the inharmony behind him: of Aunt Martha and her efforts not to "sniff"; of his mother's disapproval; and of his father's heavy heart. He thought only of the girl whom he had seen upon the hillside, and the smile her eyes had given him as they met his. Every time he thought upon it now his heart-beats quickened. All the pent-up flood of emotion that she had set going that spring afternoon upon the Hudson hillside, and that he had fought bravely all these weeks, and thought he had conquered, came now upon him with the power of stored-up energy and swept over his being in a flood-tide of gladness.

In vain he shamed himself for such unseemly joy when his only brother was in disgrace. In vain he told himself that the girl-bride would be plunged into grief when her bridegroom turned out to be no bridegroom at all. Still his heart would catch the faint melody of the wedding-march those birds and winds and branches were breathing, and would go singing along with a new gladness.

The morning was a silent one for the whole party. Even the coachman checked Pompey's levity when a robin chased a chipmunk across a distant path, and the old darkey snapped him up sharply when he ventured a question or a wonder about "Marsa" and "Missus."

But while each held to his own thoughts, and the horses sped willingly over the miles, in the heart of the young man in the front seat was growing a steady purpose.

About noon they stopped at an inn to dine, and give the horses a brief respite.

Madam Winthrop would not lie down, as they urged her, nor would she permit her husband or her son to talk with her concerning the forbidden theme. She kept the three girls with her also, that nothing might be said to them to prejudice them against their brother.

Aunt Martha, however, unable to bear up longer under the scornful scrutiny of her sister-in-law, was glad to take refuge on the high four-poster bed that the landlady put at her service, and weep a few consoling tears into the homespun linen pillow-slip. Aunt Martha was by no means sure that all was well with the boy whom she adored, though she acknowledged to herself that he had his weaknesses. Had she not seen those very weaknesses from babyhood upward, and helped many times to hide them from his blind mother and adoring sisters? Her fearful soul accepted the possibility of his sin, yet loved him in spite of it all. She resented the thought that public opinion would be against Harrington if he had done this thing, and, could she have had her way, would have had public opinion changed to suit his special need. She felt in her secret soul that prodigies like Harrington should not be expected to follow the laws like ordinary mortals.