Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

When her step-mother had left the room, Dawn had fastened the door securely against all intrusion. She was determined to have to herself what little time was left.

On the couch, under her window was spread the beautiful frock which her step-mother had prepared for her to wear. It was of white satin, rich and elaborate, and encrusted with much beautiful lace, which had been in her father's family for years, and was yellow with age. It was traditional that all the brides of the house had worn these rare laces. Dawn hated the frock and the lace. She would much rather have worn a simple muslin of her own mother, but as the marriage was not to her taste, why should her dress be, either? What mattered it? Let them all have their way with her.

Mrs. Van Rensselaer had taken much pride in preparing the beautiful garments, but Dawn knew why. She knew that it was for others to look upon, so that they would praise the step-mother for having been so good to the child who had been thrust upon her care under circumstances which, to put it mildly, were unpleasant. It spoke of no loving kindness toward her.

And so Dawn did not go over to the couch, as many another girl might have done, to examine again the filmy hand-embroidered garments, the silk stockings, and the dainty satin slippers, sewed over with seed-pearls that were also an heirloom in the family. They meant to her nothing but signs of her coming bondage.

Instead, she went to the little three-legged mahogany stand, where she had placed in a tall pitcher her spray of rosebuds. She bent over to take in their delicate fragrance, and the eyes of him who had given them to her seemed to be looking into her soul again, as twice they had looked before.

It was a strange thing—and she thought of it afterward many times—that she did not yet know who he was, and had never stopped to question. It had not even occurred to her to wonder if he were a relative or only a friend, or how he came to be in her home. She accepted him as she would have accepted a respite in some quiet place for her fevered spirit, or the visit of an angel with a message of strength from heaven. She had a vague feeling that if he had come before things might have been different.

She knelt beside the stand and let her hot cheek rest against a cool bud; she touched her lips to another, and then laid the roses on her eyelids. It seemed almost like a pitying human hand upon her spirit, and comforted her tired heart. She felt that she was growing old, very, very old, in these last few hours, to meet the requirements of her wedding day, and the touch of the buds seemed to steady and help her, as her mother's hand and lips might have done.

By and by she would have to get up and put on those fine garments lying over there in the morning sunlight, and go downstairs, for them all to stare at her misery; but now she would forget it all for a little while, and just think of her new-found friend, who had looked at her with such a wonderful smile—a smile in which there seemed no place for fault-finding or sternness or grim solemnity—the things which had seemed to make up the main part of her girlhood life.

Meantime, Mr. Winthrop and his host had gone to meet the train, upon which the expectant bridegroom would arrive.

As they neared the tavern that served as a station for the new railroad, they saw an old man, a woman, and two little children sitting upon a settle on the front stoop. The man arose and came a step or two toward them, and Mr. Winthrop saw that it was William McCord.