"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?"
"Certainly, child, if I can."
"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude to it in the most distant manner?"
"Miss Ivy, now,"—began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly.
"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I suppose—indeed, I know—that you did it because you thought you ought; but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning."
"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"—
But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work, though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty.
"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part."
Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and beautiful,—the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as aërially,—the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother she was tired and had the headache, which was true,—though, if she had said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar circumstances,—made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot assuage!
When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and desponding than her life had ever before known,—tears of shame and indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true, that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive, were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,—a chamber whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and dream away the hours,—had been rudely entered, and thrown violently open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain, she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,—their unchanging love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and watchfulness,—and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling form,—but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping infancy,—kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And she arose strengthened and comforted.