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An Original Belle, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 22. A Girl's Thoughts And Impulses |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. A GIRL'S THOUGHTS AND IMPULSES SLEEP, which Marian said would cut short her father's threatened panegyrics of Merwyn, did not come speedily. The young girl had too much food for thought. She knew that Mrs. Strahan had not, during the past summer, misunderstood her son's faithful nurse. In spite of all prejudice and resentment, in spite of the annoying fact that he would intrude so often upon her thoughts, she had to admit the truth that he was greatly changed, and that, while she might be the cause, she could take to herself no credit for the transformation. To others she had given sincere and cordial encouragement. Towards him she had been harsh and frigid. He must indeed possess a hardy nature, or else a cold persistence that almost made her shiver, it was so indomitable. She felt that she did not understand him; and she both shrunk from his character and was fascinated by it. She could not now charge him with disregard of her feelings and lack of delicacy. His visits had ceased when he believed them to be utterly repugnant; he had not availed himself of the opportunity to see her often afforded by Strahan's illness, and had been quick to take the hint that he could send his reports to her father. There had been no effort to make her aware of his self-sacrificing devotion to her friend. The thing that was irritating her was that he could approach so nearly to her standard and yet fail in a point that to her was vital. His course indicated unknown characteristics or circumstances, and she felt that she could never give him her confidence and unreserved regard while he fell short of the test of manhood which she believed that the times demanded. If underneath all his apparent changes for the better there was an innate lack of courage to meet danger and hardship, or else a cold, calculating purpose not to take these risks, she would shrink from him in strong repulsion. She knew that the war had developed not a few constitutional cowards,--men to be pitied, it is true, but with a commiseration that, in her case, would be mingled with contempt. On the other hand, if he reasoned, "I will win her if I can; I will do all and more than she can ask, but I will not risk the loss of a lifetime's enjoyment of my wealth," she would quietly say to him by her manner: "Enjoy your wealth. I can have no part in such a scheme of existence; I will not give my hand, even in friendship, to a man who would do less than I would, were I in his place." If her father was right, and he had scruples of conscience, or some other unknown restraint, she felt that she must know all before she would give her trust and more. If he could not satisfy her on these points, as others had done so freely and spontaneously, he had no right to ask or expect more from her than ordinary courtesy. Having thus resolutely considered antidotes for a tendency towards relentings not at all to her mind, and met, as she believed, her father's charge of unfairness, her thoughts, full of sympathy and hope, dwelt upon the condition of her friend. Recalling the past and the present, her heart grew very tender, and she found that he occupied in it a foremost place. Indeed, it seemed to her a species of disloyalty to permit any one to approach his place and that of Mr. Lane, for both formed an inseparable part of her new and more earnest life. She, too, had changed, and was changing. As her nature deepened and grew stronger it was susceptible of deeper and stronger influences. Under the old regime pleasure, excitement, triumphs of power that ministered to vanity, had been her superficial motives. To the degree that she had now attained true womanhood, the influences that act upon and control a woman were in the ascendant. Love ceased to dwell in her mind as a mere fastidious preference, nor could marriage ever be a calculating choice, made with the view of securing the greatest advantages. She knew that earnest men loved her without a thought of calculation,--loved her for herself alone. She called them friends now, and to her they were no more as yet. But their downright sincerity made her sincere and thoughtful. Her esteem and affection for them were so great that she was not at all certain that circumstances and fuller acquaintance might not develop her regard towards one or the other of them into a far deeper feeling. In their absence, their manly qualities appealed to her imagination. She had reached a stage in spiritual development where her woman's nature was ready for its supreme requirement. She could be more than friend, and was conscious of the truth; and she believed that her heart would make a positive and final choice in accord with her intense and loyal sympathies. In the great drama of the war centred all that ideal and knightly action that has ever been so fascinating to her sex, and daily conversation with her father had enabled her to understand what lofty principles and great destinies were involved. She had been shown how President Lincoln's proclamation, freeing the slaves, had aimed a fatal blow at the chief enemies of liberty, not only in this land, but in all lands. Mr. Vosburgh was a philosophical student of history, and, now that she had become his companion, he made it clear to her how the present was linked to the past. Instead of being imbued with vindictiveness towards the South, she was made to see a brave, self-sacrificing, but misled people, seeking to rivet their own chains and blight the future of their fair land. Therefore, a man like Lane, capable of appreciating and acting upon these truths, took heroic proportions in her fancy, while Strahan, almost as delicate as a girl, yet brave as the best, won, in his straightforward simplicity, her deepest sympathy. The fact that the latter was near, that his heart had turned to her even from under the shadow of death, gave him an ascendency for the time. "To some such man I shall eventually yield," she assured herself, "and not to one who brings a chill of doubt, not to one unmastered by loyal impulses to face every danger which our enemies dare meet." Then she slept, and dreamt that she saw Strahan reaching out his hands to her for help from dark, unknown depths. She awoke sobbing, and, under the confused impulse of the moment, exclaimed: "He shall have all the help I can give; he shall live. While he is weaker, he is braver than Mr. Lane. He triumphed over himself and everything. He most needs me. Mr. Lane is strong in himself. Why should I be raising such lofty standards of self-sacrifice when I cannot give love to one who most needs it, most deserves it?" _ |
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