Since she felt that she must be cheerful for the sake of her father--since she understood that she must work and shape her life herself--the hours became ever rarer in which she felt the separation from Clement so painfully; and at last, when he was obliged to go to the high school in the town, she was able to say farewell to him, even more composedly than the others. It is true that she went about for weeks as in a dream--as if the best half of her being had been torn away from her. But soon she was as cheerful as before, sang her favourite songs to herself, and rallied her father till she won a smile from him. When the rector's wife came across with letters from the town? and read her news and messages from Clement, her heart beat quickly, and she lay longer at night without sleep visiting her eyelids. The next morning she was bright and cheerful as before.
At the vacation Clement returned to his parents, and his first walk was to the sacristan's house. Mary distinguished his step already in the distance, remained fixed where she was, and listened whether he would ask for her. She smoothed her hair, which still rolled in tresses down her slender neck, hastily with her hands, and rose from her work. As he entered the door every trace of excitement had vanished from her features. Cheerfully she gave him her hand, and begged him to sit near her and to talk to her. Then he forgot how the time flew by, and had to be called by his mother, who begrudged his long absence from her; for he seldom remained the whole vacation at the village, but wandered into the mountains, to which his growing affection for natural science attracted him.
The years rolled on their accustomed way; the old people withered slowly, and the young ones bloomed rapidly. When Clement returned once again at Easter, and Mary arose from her spinning wheel, he was astonished to see how tall and stately she had grown since the autumn. "You are quite a woman," he said; "and I, too, am no longer a child; only feel how my beard has grown over my winter studies." A blush flitted across her cheek as he took her hand and placed it on his chin, to let her feel the newly-sprung down. He had, too, many more things to tell her than the first time he returned. The tutor with whom he lived had daughters, and these daughters had lady friends. He was obliged to describe them one and all with the greatest accuracy. "I can make nothing out of the girls," he said; "they are silly and frivolous, and chatter too much. There is one, Cecilia, that I can endure a little better than the others, because she can hold her tongue, and does not make grimaces in order to look pretty. But what do they bother me for? The other evening, when I went into my room, I found a bunch of flowers on my table, and let it lie, and never took the trouble to put it in water, though I was sorry for the flowers; but it annoyed me. And the next day there was such a giggling and whispering amongst the girls that I could not speak to them for anger. Why cannot they leave me alone? They know that I have no time for their nonsense!"
Not one word of all this did Mary lose, and spun an endless thread of strange thoughts out of it. She was almost in danger of injuring herself with fruitless dreamings, if a too well grounded cause of anxiety and real sorrow had not saved her. Her father, who had for a long time been able to do his duty with difficulty, had a paralytic stroke, and lay nearly a year perfectly helpless, until a second attack put an end to his sufferings. Not for an hour did his child leave his side. Even when the vacations brought Clement home again, she only permitted herself to talk to him during his short visits to the sickroom.
She grew ever more firm, ever more self-denying. She complained to no one, and would have required the help of none had her blindness permitted her to do all herself. And thus her misfortune, which had tutored her soul, accustomed her also to household duties, neglected by many a seeing one. She kept the strictest order over all things of which she had the care, and no amount of cleanliness could satisfy her, as she was unable to judge by the eye when the least speck of dust was removed. The tears sprang into Clement's eyes when he saw her busied washing her crippled father, or combing out his thin locks. She had grown pale in the close air of the sick-room; but her brown eyes had a deeper light from that very cause, and in all her common household work, the true nobility of her whole being only became the more evident.
The old man died, his successor took possession of the cottage, and Mary found a welcome refuge in the rectory. Clement, who in the mean time had gone to a distant university, and who was unable to visit home twice a-year as formerly, was informed of all these changes by letters, which reached him but rarely, and were answered irregularly. Now and then his letters contained a note for Mary, in which he expressed himself condescendingly and jestingly, so unlike his old self, and addressed her as if she were still a child, so that his mother shook her head and said nothing of it before his father. Mary had these strange letters carefully read to her, begged them, and preserved them.
After her father's death she received a short excited letter from him, in which he neither endeavoured to comfort her nor said a word showing a participation with her sorrow, only earnest entreaties to take care of her health, and to be quiet, and to let him know exactly how she was. This was in winter, and this letter the last to Mary. They expected a visit from him at Easter. He remained away, and wrote that he could not resist the opportunity of accompanying a celebrated professor on a botanical tour. His father was satisfied, and Mary succeeded at last in calming the mother's disappointment.
He arrived unannounced at Whitsuntide on foot, untired by a long march since daybreak, with healthy cheeks, and he was a full-grown man. So he entered the quiet house, in which his mother was sitting alone, for it was the Saturday evening before the feast-day. With a cry of joy the startled woman clasped him round the neck. "So you," she cried, as she loosened herself from his arms, and took a step backwards to measure the long absent one with the full gaze of love, "So you have returned to us once again, unkind, forgetful one. You still remember the way to your father and mother. God be praised! I thought that you had made up your mind never to return till you were a professor, and then perhaps my poor old eyes might never have rejoiced in the sight of you again here below. But I will not scold you. You are faithful. You are the old Clement. And you will give me such a Whitsun feast as I have not had for many a day, to me and your father, and to us all.
"Mother," he said, "how happy I am to be here once again! I could not bear at last to remain longer away. I do not know how it happened, I made no resolution beforehand. I felt that I must get home. One bright morning, instead of going to lecture, I walked through the town-gates, and strode away as if I fled from sin. I accomplished such journeys as I had never made before, good as I used to be on foot. Where is my father? where is Mary?"
"Don't you hear him." said the mother, "your father is above in his study." They heard the firm step of the old man as he paced to and fro above them. "All is as it used to be," continued the mother. "That has been his Saturday's walk for the twenty years that I have known him. And Mary is out in the field with our people. I have sent her out because she will not let me do anything. When she is at home she would make me sit in the corner with my hands in my lap, if she had her own way, and do everything herself. We have some new servants now, and I like her to look over them until they have got used to her. How astonished she will be to find you here! But come, I will bring you to your father, just to let him see you, and it will soon be dinner time. Come, he will not be angry at your disturbing him."