Her first contact with the New World had given her a slight jar. Utility seemed to mean here something rough and harsh, and the utility of beauty to be almost unrecognized. She had as yet met with only two kinds of people: those who regarded her talent as beautiful indeed and useful, in so far as it brought her money, but otherwise superfluous; and that yet more depressing class who were enthusiastic in hailing a new amusement, a new sensation, and who valued the singer as a necessity to elegant dissipation. As yet, she had met with no serious disciple of music.
Yet, when she stepped from her door to walk about, to renew her knowledge of familiar scenes, and make acquaintance with changed ones, she was pleased to perceive some of that tranquillity which, in her foreign life, had been so conducive to a steady growth in art. The fine streets she traversed were quiet, distant from the business world, and out of its track. The September air was golden, and the sun so warm as to make the shade welcome. Here and there, through openings between the houses, or at the ends of long avenues, were to be seen glimpses of country; and a thin haze, so exquisite that it might be the cast-off mantle of Beauty herself, half veiled, while it embellished, the landscape. It was quite in keeping to see an open church door. One who loitered on the steps explained that there was to be an organ recital, but could not say who the organist was to be.
Miss Rothsay entered, scarcely seeing her way at first, seated herself, and looked about. The atmosphere of the place suited her taste. None but noble and sacred images presented themselves. Art was there in its sublimity, and in its naïve simplicity. Here was a form full of austere beauty, there one whose grace verged on playfulness. The scene had the effect of a sacred picture, in the corner of which one can see children playing or birds on the wing.
Miss Rothsay, without knowing it, made, herself, a lovely picture in the place. Her oval, pale face was lighted by liquid gray eyes, now lifted, and drinking in the upper light. On her fair hair was set a foreign-looking black hat, turned up over the left temple with an aigrette and feather. A slight and elegant figure could be perceived beneath the dark-blue mantle.
Wondering a little, while she waited, who the organist might be, she ran over in her mind those she had known before going abroad. From [pg 790] that, dismissing the present, her thoughts glanced over those she had known abroad, and at last rested on one she had not seen nor heard of for eight years. Eight years before, Laurie had gone to Germany to study, and he was probably there yet. She recollected his face, more youthful than his years, and full of a dreamy beauty; the figure, tall and graceful, yet wanting somewhat in manly firmness. She heard again, in fancy, that changeful voice, so low, eager, and rich-toned when he was in earnest; she met again the glance of his sparkling blue eyes, full of frankness and enthusiasm. Where was he now?
Had he been a common acquaintance, she would have inquired concerning him freely; but he was a rejected lover, and she would not, by mentioning his name, remind people of that fact. Why had she rejected him? Simply because he had seemed to her not to reach her ideal. It had occurred to her since that time that possibly his manner and not his character had been at fault. At twenty years of age, she had been more mature than he at twenty-five. She liked an appearance of dignity and firmness, and had made the mistake often made by those older and wiser than herself, of thinking that dignity of soul must always be accompanied by a grave manner, and that an air occasionally or habitually demonstrative and variable, which is merely temperament, indicates a fickle or superficial mind. Sometimes, indeed, the strongest and most profound feelings, in reserved and sensitive persons, seek to veil themselves under an affectation of lightness or caprice, and the soul looks forth with a sad scorn through that flimsy mask on the hasty and egotistical judge who pronounces sentence against it.
“And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love,”
is true of some of the finest natures.
Miss Rothsay, during these eight years of her separation from Laurie, had more than once felt a misgiving on his account, lest she had done him injustice. Observing and studying the manners of those she met, she saw that what passed for dignity was sometimes only the distrustfulness of the suspicious, the caution of the worldly-wise, the unsympathizing coldness of the selfish, or the vanity of the conceited. She had lost not only her admiration, but her respect for that unchangeable loftiness which chills and awes the demonstrative into silence; and she had remembered, with a growing regret, Laurie's cordial ways, that seemed to expect friendliness and sympathy from all, and to appreciate the purity of his soul, that never looked for evil, and turned away from it when it intruded itself, and thus seemed scarcely aware that evil existed. Still she had been too deeply engrossed in her studies to give him much thought, and it was only now that she became conscious of regret.