Once when Clement came home at Easter, and saw Marlene, as, rising from her spinning-wheel she came to meet him, he was struck with the progress of her loveliness since autumn. "You are quite a grown-up young lady now," he said; "and I too have done with boyhood--only feel my beard, how it has grown over my winter studies." She blushed a little as he took her hand, and passed it across his chin to make her feel the down upon it. And he had more to talk of than he used to have. The master with whom he boarded had daughters, and these daughters had young companions. She made him describe them to her. "I don't care for girls," he said; "they are so silly, and talk such nonsense. There is only one, Cecilia, whom I don't dislike, because she does not chatter and make those faces the others do to beautify themselves--and what are they all to me? The other evening when I came home, and went into my room, I found a bunch of flowers on the table; I let it lie, and did not even put it in water, though I was sorry for the flowers--but it provoked me, and next day there was such a whispering and tittering amongst the girls!--I felt so cross, I would not speak a word to them. Why can't they let me alone?--I have no time for their nonsense."
When he talked so, Marlene would hang upon his lips, and treasuring up his words, would interweave them with an endless web of her own strange fancies. She might perhaps have been in danger of wasting her youth in fruitless reveries, but she was saved from this by serious sorrows, and cares that were very real. Her father, who had long fulfilled with difficulty the duties of his place, was now struck with paralysis, and lay entirely helpless for one whole year, when his sufferings were put an end to by a second stroke. She never left him for an hour. Even in the holidays which brought Clement, she would not spare the time to talk to him, save when he would come to spend ten minutes in the sick-room.
Thus concentrating her life, she grew more self-denying. She complained to no one, and would have needed no one, had not her blindness prevented her doing everything herself. Her misfortune had been a secret discipline to her, and had taught many a humble household virtue, that those who see neglect. She kept everything committed to her care in the most scrupulous order. Her neatness was exaggerated, for she had no eyes to see when she had done enough.
Clement was deeply moved when he first saw her trying to wash and dress her helpless father, and carefully combing his thin grey hair. If in that sick-room, her cheek grew somewhat paler, there was a deeper radiance in her large dark eyes, and to her natural distinction, those lowly labours were, in fact, a foil.
The old man died. His successor came to take possession of the house, and at the Vicarage Marlene found a kind and hospitable home.
Clement only heard this by letters rarely written, and still more rarely answered. He had gone to a more distant university, and was no longer able to spend all his holidays at home. Now and then he would enclose a few lines to Marlene, in which, contrary to his former custom, he would address her as a child, in a joking tone, that made his father serious and silent, and his mother shake her head. Marlene would have these notes read aloud to her, and listening to them gravely, would carefully keep them. When her father died, he wrote to her a short agitated letter, neither attempting to console her, nor expressing any sorrow; containing only a few earnest entreaties to be careful of her health, to be calm, and to let him know exactly how she was, and what she felt.
At Easter he had, been expected, but he did not come; he only wrote that he had found an opportunity, too good to be lost, of accompanying one of the professors on a botanical tour. His father had been satisfied, and Marlene at last successful in pacifying his mother.
He came unannounced at Whitsuntide, on foot, with glowing cheeks, unwearied by a long march before break of day--a fine-grown young man. He stepped into the silent house, where his mother was alone and busy, for it was the eve of a great holiday. Surprised, with a cry of joy, she threw herself upon his neck. "You!" she exclaimed, as soon as she had recovered herself, drawing back to gaze upon him, the long absent one, with all her love for him in her eyes. "You forgetful boy, are you come at last? You can find the way back, I see, to your old father and mother! I began to think you only meant to return to us as a full-fledged professor, and who knows whether my poor eyes would have been left open long enough to behold that pleasant sight on earth? But I must not scold you now that you are my own good boy, and are come to bring us a pleasanter Whitsuntide than I have known for years--me, your father, and all of us!" "Mother," he said, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to be at home again. I could not hold out any longer. I don't know how it happened. I had not resolved to come--I only felt I must. One fine morning, instead of going up to college, I found myself without the gates, walking for very life--such journeys in a day as I never took before, though I was always a good pedestrian. Where is my father, and Marlene?"
"Don't you hear him?" said his mother; "he is upstairs in his study." And in fact they heard the old man's heavy tread walking up and down. "It is just as it used to be--that has been his Saturday's walk all these twenty years I have known him. Marlene is with the labourers in the hayfield--I sent her away that I might be left to do my work in peace. When she is in the house, she would always have me sitting idle in the corner with my hands before me. She must needs do everything herself. We have new men just now, and I am glad that she should look after them a little, until they get accustomed to their work. Won't she be surprised to find you here? Now come, we must go upstairs to father, and let him have a look at you. It will be midday directly. Come along--he won't be angry at your disturbing him."
She led her son after her, still keeping hold of his hand while she slipped up the narrow staircase before him; then softly opening the door, with a sign to Clement, she pushed him forwards while she stepped back. "Here he is at last!" she said; "there you have him!" "Whom?" cried the old man angrily, and started from his meditations; and then he saw his son's bright face beside him radiant in the morning sunshine. He held out his hand: "Clement!" he cried, between surprise and joy, "You here!" "I was homesick, father," said his son, with a warm grasp of the proffered hand. "I am come to stay over the holidays, if there be room for me now that you have Marlene here." "How you talk!" eagerly broke in his mother; "If I had seven sons, I know I should find room for them. But I will leave you to your father now; I have to go about the kitchen, and I must rifle our vegetable-beds, for in town, I doubt they have been spoiling you."