Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us, met her lover's eyes, stood a moment with lifted lashes and bright cheeks, crept with a quick, impulsive movement into her mother's arms, kissed her, and floated away up the stairs. "It's a perfect fit," said Mrs. Bird, coming out with one corner of a very dingy handkerchief — somebody had just used it to dust the Parian vases at her eyes. And though, to be sure, it was none of my business, I caught myself saying, under my breath, "It's a fit for life; for a life, Dr. Sharpe." Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely. He was very much in love with the little pinkand-white cloud that had just fluttered up the stairs. If it had been drifting to him for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have felt no doubt of the "fit." Nor, I am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to him that evening after the bridal finery was put away, and knelt at his feet in her plain little muslin dress, her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net behind her ears, -- Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded off in the colors of a pale apple-blossom, up-turning her flushed and weary face. "Put away the book, please, Myron." Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious Affections), and looked for a moment without speaking at the upturned face. When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper : "Harrie, are you afraid of me? I know I am not very good." And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the scarlet leaves upon her hair, said softly, — "How could I be afraid of you? It is I who am not good." Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affection that evening. All the time that the skies were fading, we saw them wandering in and out among the apple-trees, she with those shining eyes, and her hand in his. And when to-morrow had come and gone, and in the dying light they drove away, and Miss Dallas threw old Grandmother Bird's little satin boot after the carriage, the last we saw of her was that her hand was clasped in his, and that her eyes were shining. This home was on the coast. The townspeople made shoes, and minded their own business. Dr. Sharpe bought the dying practice of an antediluvian who believed in camomile and castoroil. Harrie mended a few stockings, made a few pies, and watched the sea. It was almost enough of itself to make one happy the sea - as it tumbled about the shores of Lime. Harrie had a little seat hollowed out in the cliffs, and a little scarlet bathingdress, which was surprisingly becoming, and a little boat of her own, moored in a little bay, a pretty shell which her husband had had made to order, that she might be able to row herself on a calm water. He was very thoughtful for her in those days. -- She used to take her sewing out upon the cliff; she would be demure and busy; she would finish the selvage seam; but the sun blazed, the sea shone, the birds sang, all the world was at play, what could it matter about selvage seams? So the little gold thimble would drop off, the spool trundle down the cliff, and Harrie, sinking back into a cushion of green and crimson sea-weed, would open her wide eyes and dream. The waves purpled and silvered, and broke into a mist like powdered amber, the blue distances melted softly,, the white sand glittered, the gulls were chattering shrilly. What a world it was! And he is in it!" thought Harrie. Then she would smile and shut her eyes. "And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that Moses' face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him." Harrie wondered if everybody's joy were too great to look upon, and wondered, in a childish, frightened way, how it might be with sorrow; if people stood with veiled faces before it, dumb with pain as she with peace, - and then it was dinner-time, and Myron came down to walk up the beach with her, and she forgot all about it. She forgot all about everything but the bare joy of life and the sea, when she had donned the pretty scarlet suit, and crept out into the surf, at the proper medicinal hour, for the Doctor was very particular with her, when the warm brown waves broke over her face, the long sea-weeds slipped through her fingers, the foam sprinkled her hair with crystals, and the strong wind was up. She was a swift swimmer, and, as one watched from the shore, her lithe scarlet shoulders seemed to glide like a trail of fire through the lighted water; and when she sat in shallow foam with sunshine on her, or flashed through the dark green pools among the rocks, or floated with the incoming tide, her great bathing-hat dropping shadows on her wet little happy face, and her laugh ringing out, it was a pretty sight. But a prettier one than that, her husband thought, was to see her in her boat at sunset; when sea and sky were aflame, when every flake of foam was a rainbow, and the great chalk-cliffs were blood-red; when the wind blew her net off, and in pretty petulance she pulled her hair down, and it rippled all about her as she dipped into the blazing West. Dr. Sharpe used to drive home by the beach, on a fair night, always, that he might see it. Then Harrie would row swiftly in, and spring into the low, broad buggy beside him, and they rode home together in the fragrant dusk. Sometimes she used to chatter on these twilight drives; but more often she crept up to him and shut her eyes, and was as still as a sleepy bird. It was so pleasant to do nothing but be happy! I believe that at this time Dr. Sharpe loved his wife as unselfishly as he knew how. Harrie often wrote me that he was "very good." She was sometimes a little troubled that he should "know so much more " than she, and had fits of reading the newspapers and reviewing her French, and studying cases of hydrophobia, or some other pleasant subject which had a professional air. Her husband laughed at her for her pains, but nevertheless he found her so much the more entertaining. Sometimes she drove about with him on his calls, or amused herself by making jellies in fancy moulds for his poor, or sat in his lap and discoursed like a bobolink of croup and measles, pulling his whiskers the while with her pink fingers. All this, as I have said, was before the first baby came. It is surprising what vague ideas young people in general, and young men in particular, have of the rubs and jars of domestic life; especially domestic life on an income of eighteen hundred, American constitutions and country servants thrown in. Dr. Sharpe knew something of illness and babies and worry and watching; but that his own individual baby should deliberately lie and scream till two o'clock in the morning was a source of perpetual astonishment to him; and that it, - he and Mrs. Sharpe had their first quarrel over his persistence in calling the child an "it," tlfat it should invariably feel No News. called upon to have the colic just as he It was for a long time a mystery to So, gradually, in the old way, the old sweet habits of the long honeymoon were broken. Harrie dreamed no more on the cliffs by the bright noon sea; had no time to spend making scarlet pictures in the little bathing-suit; had seldom strength to row into the sunset, her hair loose, the bay on fire, and one to watch her from the shore. There were no more walks up the beach to dinner; there came an end to the drives in the happy twilight; she could not climb now upon her husband's knee because of the heavy baby on her own. The spasms of newspaper reading subsided rapidly; Corinne and Racine gathered the dust in peace upon their shelves; Mrs. Sharpe made no more fancy jellies, and found no time to inquire after other people's babies. One becomes used to anything after a while, especially if one happens to be a man. It would have surprised Dr. Sharpe, if he had taken the pains to notice, which I believe he never did, how easily he became used to his solitary drives and disturbed teas; to missing Harrie's watching face at door or window; to sitting whole evenings by himself while she sang to the fretful baby overhead with her sweet little 261 tired voice; to slipping off into the cried at night, and Harrie, up and down "spare room to sleep when the child with him by the hour, flitted from cradle to bed, or paced the room, or sat sheer despair of rest; to wandering and sang, or lay and cried herself, in away on lonely walks ; to stepping often into a neighbor's to discuss the election getting that his wife's conversational or the typhoid in the village; to forcapacities could extend beyond Biddy and teething; to forgetting that she might ever hunger for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the of their early married days; to going caresses, all the silly little lovers' habits his own ways, and letting her hers. and loved her well. Yet he loved her, and loved her only, doubted, nor, to my surprise, did she. That he never there, being fairly frightened out of the I remember once, when on a visit proprieties by hearing her call him "Dr. Sharpe." I called her away from the ing me unpack. children soon after, on pretence of helppulled her down upon a trunk tray beI locked the door, side me, folded both her hands in mine, and studied her face; it had grown to be a very thin little face, less pretty than it was in the shadow of the woodbine, with absent eyes and a sad mouth. She knew that I loved her, and my heart was full for the child; and so, for I could not help it, I said, go "Harrie, is all well between you? Is he quite the same?" She looked at me with a perplexed and musing air. same to me. "The same? O yes, he is quite the -- She drew herself up a little haughtily, 262 But the perplexed knot upon her foreI was rather head did not slip away. glad that it did not. I liked it better than the absent eyes. That afternoon she left her baby with Biddy for a couple of hours, went away by herself into the garden, sat down upon a stone and thought. Harrie took a great deal of comfort in her babies, quite as much as I Women whose wished to have her. dream of marriage has faded a little So, when Harrie forgot the baby for a whole afternoon, and sat out on her stone there in the garden thinking, I felt rather glad than sorry. It was when little Harrie was a baby, I believe, that Mrs. Sharpe took that She notion about having company. was growing out of the world, she said; turning into a fungus; petrifying; had forgotten whether you called your seats at the Music Hall pews or settees, and was as afraid of a well-dressed woman as she was of the croup. So the Doctor's house at Lime was for two or three months overrun with Fathers and visitors and vivacity. mothers made fatherly and motherly stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I were invited in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful intervals between. The Doctor was not much in the mood for entertaining Miss Dallas; he was a little tired of company, and had had a hard week's work with an epidemic Miss Dallas came a day earlier than she was expected, and, as chance would have it, Harrie was devoting the afternoon to cutting out shirts. Any one who has sat from two till six at that engaging occupation, will understand precisely how her back ached and her temples throbbed, and her fingers stung, and her neck stiffened; why her eyes swam, her cheeks burned, her brain was deadened, the children's voices were insufferable, the slamming of a door an agony, the past a blot, the future unendurable, life a burden, friendship a myth, her hair down, and her collar unpinned. Miss Dallas had never cut a shirt, nor, I believe, had Dr. Sharpe. Harrie was groaning over the last wristband but one, when she heard her husband's voice in the hall. "Harrie, Harrie, your friend is here. I found her, by a charming accident, at the station, and drove her home." And Miss Dallas, gloved, perfumed, rustling, in a very becoming veil and travelling-suit of the latest mode, swept in upon her. Harrie was too much of a lady to waste any words on apology, so she ran just as she was, in her calico dress, with the collar hanging, into Pauline's stately arms, and held up her little burning cheeks to be kissed. But her husband looked annoyed. Ile came down before tea in his best coat to entertain their guest. Biddy was "taking an afternoon" that day, and Harrie bustled about with her aching back to make tea and wash the children. She had no time to spend upon herself, and, rather than keep a hungry traveller waiting, smoothed her hair, knotted a ribbon at the collar, and came down in her calico dress. Dr. Sharpe glanced at it in some surprise. He repeated the glances several times in the course of the evening, as he sat chatting with his wife's friend. Miss Dallas was very sprightly in conversation; had read some, had thought some; and had the appearance of having read and thought about twice as much as she had. Myron Sharpe had always considered his wife a handsome woman. That nobody else thought her so had made no difference to him. He had often looked into the saucy eyes of little Harrie Bird, and told her that she was very pretty. As a matter of theory, he supposed her to be very pretty, now that she was the mother of his three children, and breaking her back to cut out his shirts. Miss Dallas was a generously framed, well-proportioned woman, who carried long trains, and tied her hair with crimson velvet. She had large, serene eyes, white hands, and a very pleasant smile. A delicate perfume stirred as she stirred, and she wore a creamy lace about her throat and wrists. Calicoes were never becoming to Harrie, and that one with the palm-leaf did not fit her well, she cut it herself, to save expense. As the evening passed, in reaction from the weariness of shirt-cutting she grew pale, and the sallow tints upon her face came out; her features sharpened, as they had a way of doing when she was tired; and she had little else to do that evening than think how tired she was, for her husband observing, as he remarked afterwards, that she did not feel like talking, kindly entertained her friend himself. As they went up stairs for the night, it struck him, for the first time in his life, that Harrie had a snubbed nose. It annoyed him, because she was his wife, and he loved her, and liked to feel that she was as well looking as other women. "Your friend is a bright girl," he said, encouragingly, when Harrie had hushed a couple of children, and sat wearily down to unbutton her boots. "I think you will find her more easy to entertain than Cousin Mehitabel." Then, seeing that Harrie answered absently, and how exhausted she looked, he expressed his sorrow that she should have worked so long over the shirts, and kissed her as he spoke; while Harrie cried a little, and felt as if she would cut them all over again for that. The next day Miss Dallas and Mrs. Sharpe sat sewing together; Harrie cramping her shoulders and blackening her hands over a patch on Rocko's rough little trousers; Pauline playing idly with purple and orange wools, — her fingers were white, and she sank with grace into the warm colors of the armchair; the door was open into the hall, and Dr. Sharpe passed by, glancing in as he passed. "Your husband is a very intelligent man, Harrie," observed Miss Dallas, studying her lavenders and lemons thoughtfully. "I was much interested in what he said about pre-Adamic man, last evening." "Yes," said Harrie, "he knows a great deal. I always thought so." The little trousers slipped from her black fingers by and by, and her eyes wandered out of the window absently. She did not know anything about pre-Adamic man. - In the afternoon they walked down the beach together, the Doctor, his wife, and their guest, accompanied by as few children as circumstances would admit of. Pauline was stately in a beach-dress of bright browns, which shaded softly into one another; it was one of Miss Dallas's peculiarities, that she never wore more than one color or two at the same time. Harrie, as it chanced, wore, over her purple dress (Rocko had tipped over two ink-bottles and a vinegar-cruet on the sack which should have matched it) a dull gray shawl; her bonnet was blue, it had been a present from Myron's sister, and she had no other way than to wear it. Miss Dallas bounded with pretty feet from rock to rock. Rocko hung heavily to his mother's fingers; she had no gloves, the child would have spoiled them; her dress dragged in the sand, - she could not afford two skirts, and one must be long, and between Rocko and the wind she held it up awkwardly. |