breakfast she would insist upon following Mary about through all her avocations. She possessed herself of a towel, and would wipe the cups and saucers, while Mary washed. She clinked the glasses, and rattled the cups and spoons, and stepped about as briskly as if she had two or three breezes to carry her train, and chattered half English and half French, for the sake of bringing into Mary's cheek the shy, slow dimples that she liked to watch. But still Mrs. Scudder was around, with an air as provident and forbidding as that of a sitting hen who watches her nest; nor was it till after all things had been cleared away in the house, and Mary had gone up into her little attic to spin, that the long-sought opportunity came of diving to the bottom of this mystery.
"Enfin, Marie, nous voici! Are you not going to tell me anything, when I have turned my heart out to you like a bag? Chère enfant! how happy you must be!" she said, embracing her.
"Yes, I am very happy," said Mary, with calm gravity.
"Very happy!" said Madame de Frontignac, mimicking her manner. "Is that the way you American girls show it, when you are very happy? Come, come, ma belle! tell little Virginie something. Thou hast seen this hero, this wandering Ulysses. He has come back at last; the tapestry will not be quite as long as Penelope's? Speak to me of him. Has he beautiful black eyes, and hair that curls like a grape-vine? Tell me, ma belle!"
"I only saw him a little while," said Mary, "and I felt a great deal more than I saw. He could not have been any clearer to me than he always has been in my mind."
"But I think," said Madame de Frontignac, seating Mary, as was her wont, and sitting down at her feet, "I think you are a little triste about this. Very likely you pity the good priest. It is sad for him; but a good priest has the Church for his bride, you know."
"You do not think," said Mary, speaking seriously, "that I shall break my promise given before God to this good man?"
"Mon Dieu, mon enfant! you do not mean to marry the priest, after all? Quelle idée!"
"But I promised him," said Mary.
Madame de Frontignac threw up her hands, with an expression of vexation.
"What a pity, my little one, you are not in the True Church! Any good priest could dispense you from that."
"I do not believe," said Mary, "in any earthly power that can dispense us from solemn obligations which we have assumed before God, and on which we have suffered others to build the most precious hopes. If James had won the affections of some girl, thinking as I do, I should not think it right for him to leave her and come to me. The Bible says, that the just man is 'he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.'"
"C'est le sublime de devoir!" said Madame de Frontignac, who, with the airy frailty of her race, never lost her appreciation of the fine points of anything that went on under her eyes. But, nevertheless, she was inwardly resolved, that, picturesque as this "sublime of duty" was, it must not be allowed to pass beyond the limits of a fine art, and so she recommenced.
"Mais c'est absurde. This beautiful young man, with his black eyes, and his curls,—a real hero,—a Theseus, Mary,—just come home from killing a Minotaur,—and loves you with his whole heart,—and this dreadful promise! Why, haven't you any sort of people in your Church that can unbind you from promises? I should think the good priest himself would do it!"
"Perhaps he would," said Mary, "if I should ask him; but that would be equivalent to a breach of it. Of course, no man would marry a woman that asked to be dispensed."
"You are an angel of delicacy, my child; c'est admirable! but, after all, Mary, this is not well. Listen now to me. You are a very sweet saint, and very strong in goodness. I think you must have a very strong angel that takes care of you. But think, chère enfant,—think what it is to marry one man while you love another!"
"But I love the Doctor," said Mary, evasively.
"Love!" said Madame de Frontignac. "Oh, Marie! you may love him well, but you and I both know that there is something deeper than that. What will you do with this young man? Must he move away from this place, and not be with his poor mother any more? Or can you see him, and hear him, and be with him, after your marriage, and not feel that you love him more than your husband?"
"I should hope that God would help me to feel right," said Mary.
"I am very much afraid He will not, ma chère. I asked Him a great many times to help me, when I found how wrong it all was; but He did not. You remember what you told me the other day,—that, if I would do right, I must not see that man any more. You will have to ask him to go away from this place; you can never see him; for this love will never die till you die;—that you may be sure of. Is it wise? is it right, dear little one? Must he leave his home forever for you? or must you struggle always, and grow whiter and whiter, and fall away into heaven, like the moon this morning, and nobody know what is the matter? People will say you have the liver-complaint, or the consumption, or something. Nobody ever knows what we women die of."
Poor Mary's conscience was fairly posed. This appeal struck upon her sense of right as having its grounds. She felt inexpressibly confused and distressed.
"Oh, I wish somebody would tell me exactly what is right!" she said.
"Well, I will," said Madame de Frontignac. "Go down to the dear priest, and tell him the whole truth. My dear child, do you think, if he should ever find it out after your marriage, he would think you used him right?"
"And yet mother does not think so; mother does not wish me to tell him."
"Pauvrette, toujours les mères! Yes, it is always the mothers that stand in the way of the lovers. Why cannot she marry the priest herself?" she said between her teeth, and then looked up, startled and guilty, to see if Mary had heard her.
"I cannot," said Mary,—"I cannot go against my conscience, and my mother, and my best friend."
At this moment, the conference was cut short by Mrs. Scudder's provident footsteps on the garret-stairs. A vague suspicion of something French had haunted her during her dairy-work, and she resolved to come and put a stop to the interview, by telling Mary that Miss Prissy wanted her to come and be measured for the skirt of her dress.
Mrs. Scudder, by the use of that sixth sense peculiar to mothers, had divined that there had been some agitating conference, and, had she been questioned about it, her guesses as to what it might have been would probably have given no bad résumé of the real state of the case. She was inwardly resolved that there should be no more such for the present, and kept Mary employed about various matters relating to the dresses, so scrupulously that there was no opportunity for anything more of the sort that day.
In the evening James Marvyn came down, and was welcomed with the greatest demonstrations of joy by all but Mary, who sat distant and embarrassed, after the first salutations had passed.
The Doctor was innocently paternal; but we fear that on the part of the young man there was small reciprocation of the sentiments he expressed.
Miss Prissy, indeed, had had her heart somewhat touched, as good little women's hearts are apt to be by a true love-story, and had hinted something of her feelings to Mrs. Scudder, in a manner which brought such a severe rejoinder as quite humbled and abashed her, so that she coweringly took refuge under her former declaration, that, "to be sure, there couldn't be any man in the world better worthy of Mary than the Doctor," while still at her heart she was possessed with that troublesome preference for unworthy people which stands in the way of so many excellent things. But she went on vigorously sewing upon the wedding-dress, and pursing up her small mouth into the most perfect and guarded expression of non-committal; though she said afterwards, "it went to her heart to see how that poor young man did look, sitting there just as noble and as handsome as a picture. She didn't see, for her part, how anybody's heart could stand it; though, to be sure, as Miss Scudder said, the poor Doctor ought to be thought about, dear blessed man! What a pity it was things would turn out so! Not that it was a pity that Jim came home,—that was a great providence,—but a pity they hadn't known about it sooner. Well, for her part, she didn't