The little time allotted Emma seemed important, not only as it regarded her duty to others, but also in respect to herself. She desired a complete fitness for the refined society which she was about to enter. She wished, above all things, to become meet for an inheritance with the saints in light; and for this fitness she strove, using with diligence every means relative to this end which God had placed within her reach; and, as a valuable means, she availed herself of the spiritual perception and Christian fidelity of good Dora, who was always ready to aid her.
"Tell me," she would say, "all that you see or fear that is wrong in me; help me to examine my motives, emotions, and affections:" and Dora covenanted with Emma to this effect,—a sacred covenant, and one that should be oftener made among those who would be made perfect.
It was in accordance with this covenant that Emma had spoken fully of her feelings and impressions respecting Fanny Brighton; and we have seen how faithfully this good woman kept her part of this covenant, by pointing out to Emma the judgment of charity and the judgment of self.
Emma still sat by the open window, upon that fine morning, thinking and feeling, as she long had done, of the heart's great depth of deceitfulness, which no man could know, and no human power could reach, when she saw Mr. Graffam coming along the road.
Poor Graffam, though in his sober senses, had been longer crossing the plain that morning than usual. Far down in the depths of his beclouded soul there was a love of the beautiful, and that love on this morning had been stirred within him. His eyes had been open to see the glittering dewdrops upon the tall wild flowers and green herbage of the plain, to see the giant trees stretch their green arms toward the sky; and his ears had been open to hear a sweet concert upon their topmost branches. Poor buried soul!—how it struggled for a resurrection; now leaping with joy at the thought of its own affinity for the pure and beautiful, and now sinking, sinking, sinking with the one blighting thought of human scorn richly merited.
Night after night had poor Graffam reeled from side to side of that grass-tufted road, while the plain seemed to him an interminable lake of fire, amid whose scalding waves there rolled and tossed poor wretches like himself; and morning after morning he had returned by the same road, feeling as though a frost-breath had passed over the lake of fire, leaving it rough and leaden like a lava-deluged plain. But now, whence came the wonderful beauty of the widespread landscape? He knew in part, and brushed his old jacket sleeve across his swollen eyes. He feared that the vision was fated to pass away, "For my character is gone," said he; "nobody respects me; they call me 'old Pete,' and I am doomed." But a new feeling now came over him. He was nearing Snag-Orchard. The old chimneys were seen among the tree-tops, and strange to himself, (for years had passed since he had cared for his personal appearance,) he found his right hand tucking up its brother's dirty wristband, and adroitly turning the torn part of his old hat-rim to the side opposite Appledale.
"Good-morning, good-morning, Mr. Graffam," was the cheerful greeting coming to him from a chamber window.
But lo! he has forgotten the torn rim, and now it is flapping most gracefully, as the hat descends from the head, and is waved toward the window.
"Stop, if you please," said Emma; and she ran down the stairway, and along the garden-walk, toward the gate.
"Why, who is Emma flying to see?" asked Martha, as she saw her sister's white dress flitting past the window.