The offer was tempting, although its acceptance was ungracious. He pointed to a piece, and she removed her bonnet and seated herself near him. He did not inquire if she were going out, and she did not make her sacrifice meritorious in his eyes, by informing him that she gave up her walk to minister to his enjoyment. She read well;—her voice was exquisitely modulated; her enunciation perfect; Mr. Read forgot to be peevish, and his corrugated forehead lost half its wrinkles. When she ceased, he seemed to have been lulled by a strain of music. The article selected was an editorial leader on political economy, unintelligible and prosy to Ida; but she endeavored not to let this appear. He nodded, and stripped the envelope from another sheet. His eye gleamed, and with an approach to a smile, he showed her six columns of an oration;—a grand effort of the immortal sage of Marshfield. Ida was appalled at the superficies of the solid mass, but she said over to herself, a verse she had lisped at her mother's knee.
"Did I this day, for small or great,
My own pursuits forego,
To lighten, by a feather's weight,
The load of human woe?"
and began the terrible undertaking. The preamble over, she became insensibly interested. Her soul-lit face and ringing intonations supplied to the auditor, the actual presence of the orator; he looked and listened until the light failed; then rang for candles. Mrs. Read, returning from her airing, seated herself silently by the fire. It was the prettiest domestic scene that had ever been witnessed in that house; and how little reality was there in its air of home-happiness!
"Is that all?" asked Mr. Read, at supper-time.
"Almost, sir. I can soon finish it. I will not detain you Mrs. Read." But she waited to hear the conclusion. A gruff "Thank you," was Ida's only reward, besides the praise of her conscience; and her tired throat obliged her to refuse Charley his favorite song that night, but she did not repent. She volunteered her services whenever she knew that there were new books or journals, and at length, the latest intelligence was distasteful, unless it came through her lips. It was a selfish gratification; and she did not delude herself with illusions of personal attachment. She strove to live for the benefit and pleasure of her fellow-beings; to leave her interest and ease out of sight; and she could not have been in a better school. The woman's heart was not still. There were moments of weariness and longing, and passionate regrets. The soul, refusing the realities, which made up the sum of every-day duty, pined for the remembered "Dream Land;"—its retreat, and the scene of its holiday revels;—and when the aching and thirst were at their height, it was a trial to smile at a caress from Mrs. Dana, or a friendly act of Charley's—dear and thoughtful brother! when she could have rested her tired head upon the kind bosom, and wept her life away—but she did smile, and bore up bravely until God gave her strength to rise above the weakness.
The Sabbath was a season of delight. A band of little girls watched eagerly for her at Sabbath-school. Inclement indeed must the day be, that saw their form vacant; for she was always at her post, and regarded snow and rain as minor hindrances when her flock nestled closely to "dear Miss Ida." No class loved their teacher and their Bible so well as hers; her co-laborers said she had a secret spell, by which she won and governed them; and she had,—for she was ever mindful that she had another account to render than her report to the Superintendent, and prayed that it might be—"Those whom Thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost." She loved her pastor; but her acquaintance with him was slight. He visited her at stated times, and esteemed her an "amiable girl, with a creditable fund of general information;" he "could not know the exercises of all his members;" and that a woman whose life was so uncheckered, should have any difficulties and sorrows, but such as are incidental to the experience of every Christian, never crossed his brain. But he was a faithful expounder of the Scriptures; and if he did not remark the changeful light of the eyes, which never released him from the text to the "Amen" of his discourse;—she felt that consolations and advice so applicable, must be meant for her; and remembered him in her orisons, as a Shepherd who cared for his sheep, and selected for each, food convenient for him. She resolved repeatedly, to thank him for his fidelity; but her courage melted when the opportunity arrived; and she would rebuke the vanity that bred the desire. She read that in the primitive church, "those who loved the Lord, spake often to one another;" and imagined, in her simplicity, that such intercourse would be of mutual comfort and profit; yet a seal was upon her mouth, and she waited and wished in vain, for a word in the conversation of her brethren, which would dissolve it. It was strange that she could speak freely and heartily to Carry and to Charley, and be restrained by the presence of those, who had tasted like joys—were bound upon the same pilgrimage as herself.
There was an exception—a minister from another State, with whom she once dined at Mr. Dana's; a merry-hearted, whole-souled man, whose store of anecdote and pleasantry enlivened the company at table;—and after dinner, gathering from a passing remark, that she was a professing Christian, he sought her out; and while the rest were busy about other matters, they were talking of the "peace which passeth understanding," and the home in preparation for them;—not with austere gravity, but, easily and happily, as befitted a topic so inspiriting. They separated—not to meet again in time; and Ida went on her way, cheered and strengthened by the interview, and hoping to thank him in heaven, for the seed he had sowed by the wayside—not in the Scriptural sense of the term.
Mr. Read's disease assumed a chronic type. Some days well enough to transact business in person,—then relapsing, in consequence of trifling exposure or change of weather, his existence was a series of anxieties and sufferings. Ida did not know how she became his nurse; Josephine would not endure his petulance, and her retorts exasperated him; and his wife was too deep in the vortex of fashionable life to waste many minutes upon him; it was unjust and unfeeling to abandon him to the care of menials; and as with her reading, what was a favor, voluntarily offered, came to be regarded as a duty, expected and unrequited. The Danas objected to this thankless sacrifice; but she persisted. It was during one of his worst spells, that an incident occurred, which she did not heed at the time, but when recalled by subsequent events, was fraught with meaning. It was in the evening; and she was on her way to the dining-room, to order a cup of tea for the invalid, when the light streaming through a crack in the parlor-door suggested the probability that the servant she was in quest of, was lighting the lamps in there. She pushed the door open. Mrs. Read was in the middle of the room, her face averted, and her arm extended in repulsion or denial, towards a tall, dark man, who was speaking in a low, excited tone. "'Forget!' I do not forget that circumstances are not what they were then!" was all that Ida heard, as she retired hastily and unseen. As she passed through the entry, she caught a noise, like the rustle of drapery, but supposed it to be the waving of her dress in the wind. Mr. Read was in agony; and Ida sent to request Dr. Ballard's immediate presence. The messenger's steps were not cold upon the stairs, when the sick man tormented himself with impatience for the physician's arrival.
"If the servant had a pass, it was not signed—if it was signed, he had lost it—if he had lost it, Ballard would wait to eat his supper, before he came. I wish he had this shooting fire through his limbs! It would put some speed into his lazy body! Ah! there he is!"
It was Mrs. Read, who meeting the servant with the tea, and hearing of her husband's state, had taken it from him. Ida, preoccupied as she was, noticed that she was pale and agitated. Her voice too, was tremulous, and had a cadence that might have been mistaken for tenderness.