CHAPTER XIII.
'Love descends.' To be filial is a virtue. But who calls parental affection a virtue? 'Honor thy father and they mother.' It is commanded from Sinai. 'Love and cherish they children.'
The idea is a melancholy one, that as we grow old, and more than ever require sympathy, our children, in the inevitable course of nature, become interested in their own surroundings, and less able to sympathize with us.
Joel Burns was not, in the ordinary sense, growing old. He was in the very flush and prime of his manhood. I have explained with what feeling and affection he regarded his daughter, and how his daughter regarded him. But for Joel Burns is coming the hour of agony and trial. Reader, if perchance you begin to take some interest in this narrative, do not blame Sarah Burns. Could she oppose the vis naturæ? Could she, if she would, battle against that subtle and irresistible leaven which now began to pervade her being? Indeed, she could not. And how unconscious she was! How much more than ever she loved her father!—as she thought. Perhaps she did. For when a young girl first feels her soul charged with this mysterious influence, how kindly and joyously and lovingly all are embraced!—father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends.
Sarah had only her father; and when her heart began to fructify and expand, all her affections expanded with it. Not that her heart had, as yet, any object to rest on. By no means. But the time had come. There was no resisting it, any more than resistance may be predicated of the green leaf, which must put forth in the spring, bringing bud and flower and fruit after it. Yet, I repeat, Sarah Burns was unconscious, actually and absolutely unconscious. Do not suppose she cared specially about Hiram Meeker. She did not. Her nature only was on the alert, not she. Hiram, all things considered, was the most agreeable man she had met, and why should she not be attracted by him—to an extent? I say attracted: I do not mean anything else. Why should she not be?
Joel Burns, I cannot help pitying you. With no living being with whom you can intimately sympathize, except your daughter—her child, on whom the affluence of your heart had all been shed! You feel instinctively the real state of things. And you quite understand it. You knew it was to be. But you hoped, not quite so soon—not quite so soon.
Perhaps, reader, I may not echo your own sentiments, when I speak of Joel Burns. But I love a genuine nature, as his. I admire beyond expression honesty of soul—that honesty which will not think of itself nor seek to have others think of it different from what it really is.
Yes, I feel sorry for Joel Burns.
Mr. Burns, as I have already observed, took the papers which Hiram put in his hands, in the belief they contained little to satisfy or encourage him. While his confidential clerk was absent, he had permitted his mind to dwell on the 'unfortunate affair' more than was his habit in relation to any matter of business. This, however, was assuming such ugly proportions, that he could not avoid it. Sarah also could not help talking about it. So that Hiram's arrival served to terminate a suspense which had become painful.