More than once Ralph stopped in his stroll to bury his face in some peculiarly tempting rose, or to pass his hand caressingly over the rich, soft velvet of an appealing pansy at his feet.
“What a sweet place,” he thought to himself “and what a perfect day! Just the place to make love in.”
So, too, thought his only companion in the garden, a young girl, half lying, half sitting in the arbour, whom as yet he had not observed served. Nor had he, so far, been perceived by her.
Marion, for she it was, had been spending the morning in a very idle fashion. With a book in her hand, but not reading, in a half dream of sweet summer fancies, subdued to pensiveness if not to melancholy, as was all about her, by the shadows of the past; but tinged and brightened, nevertheless, by the gentle sunshine of peace and affection which was gradually stealing into her life.
She was growing happier, there was no doubt. As she sat in the arbour that morning in dreamy restfulness, she acknowledged this to herself.
It might be to some extent the sweet summer influences about her—the flowers and the sunshine, and that loveliest of summer sounds, the soft, musical, mysterious hum—above, around, close-at-hand, and yet far off—of the myriads of busy, happy insects, rejoicing in their life; it might, to some extent, come from these outer-world influences, for her nature was intensely, exquisitely sensitive and impressionable. But however this may have been, the result was the same. The thoughts in her heart were full of gratitude and gentle gladness, as she murmured to herself softly, “I thank God that I am growing happier. The past has not crushed me so utterly as I thought. My youth has not altogether left me. I have suffered, God knows how I have suffered, but I thank Him that the memory of it is beginning to fade in the light of the peaceful present.”
“Happiness” to some natures means more than to others. There are plants that cannot live without sunshine. Marion was one of these. Happiness to her meant capability of well-doing—life, strength, and heart to fill her place in the world and do her work.
There are some few—the grandest of us all—to whom it is given bravely to endure to the end, with no hope on this side the grave; to do their task thoroughly, though it is all working in the dark with no prospect of light, save the far-off, fitful gleam that but seldom reaches the wearied eyes from across the depths of the dark river itself. But my poor child was not of these. She was strong, in a sense, stronger and deeper than most of her sex. But without some sunshine she must have withered and died.
She felt instinctively that so it was with her; and there was more, far more, than the selfish cry of relief from pain, in her deep thankfulness for the light beginning again, as she thought, however feebly, to glimmer on her path.
But as she was thinking thus, gazing out on the brightness and beauty around her, a shadow came between her and the sun, and the warmth and light flooding in through the narrow door of the rustic, close-thatched arbour, were suddenly intercepted.