Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-05-22

| this minute that the doctor says 1t may
be quick consumption, and it may be
that there's nothing in this world to do /;
and I'd rather my own mother would
tell me-.
Rachel, in the sluggish breeze, her
barred arms crossed upon her calico cook
ing apron, and her falling hair blown
about her face, sat for some moments
perfectly still.
Her mother did not look at her. The
wind rose little restlessly, and the bees
in the front garden, feasting on the
hearts of the great peonies, hummed so
loudly that ii seemed as if all the world
could hear them.
81 suppose" said Rachers voice at
length, breaking duly against the roys-
tering, lawless sound, " that he is not
able-to come and see me ?"
'Oh! my dear" said her mother, she
cannot leave his bed"
"Then l will go to him, answered
Rachel, simply.
She arose and pulled her sleeves down
and took her apron off.
Mrs. Fross put her black hair-clOth
chair against the wall. She then chut
the door, and shook her grave, gray
head.
"My daughter, you are troubled and
not quite yourself, or you would think
it is not suitable; it is not maidenly;
you cannot offer Mr.. Craven your serv-
ices as nurse.
g He is to be my husband" Rachel
cried She felt her brain whirl; all the
world grew dark in her mothers
panied, uneven, but unrelenting voice,
all the world-her world, the grave,
good, calm, virtuous world-spOke out to
her. Clear through the humming of the
crazy, blessed bees among the peonies,
the good people whom she knew, Mr.
GraVens stately friends. the blurred Wis
ion of the seminary at Princeton, its
awful self, and worse, ah worse than
that, AZrael's weak, fine voice cutting
the two words out and welding them
around her: ''Not maidenly." 1t
seemed to Rachel Fross that chains could
not have held her from her lover; but
those two words fettered her fast to the
great brown rose in the parlOr carpet
which sprawled beneath her feet. She
looked down at it with a sudden hate for
the dull, false thing. Roses 601Ld not
grow that color They never had they
never would
Her thought followed this fancy in a
confused way She could not think
about Azrael for a moment she could
not understand; the idea slipped away
from her What did it mean?
She wondered how long her mother
had been talking, when at last these
words attracted her attention
''And since he is not your husband,
Rachel, and since il is not becoming a
Young lady to think of that, do not see,
my dear, what can be done. If the
Lord should will"
Rachel started and recoiled. She
could not talk about the Lords will just
then. OF course it was right, and great,
and good but she could not talk about
it then.
She walked drearily and dizzily away;
and not knowing what else to do, went
back and finished her bread-cake by her
self. She noticed that she could not
hear the bees among the peonies at the
kitchen window.
Her mother had spoken the truth.
Rachel realized this keenly enough as
weeks dragged on. 1t would not have been
''maidenly." No one in Southampton
would have thought it so. Dir. Craven
would not think il so.
AT times a querulous hatred of the
word sprang up in Rachels heart. If
one were unmaidenly, would the earth
spin on her axis still? What would it
be like? Would it make SO much differ
ence after Azrael was dead
For Azrael must die. Rachael never
questioned that. The jets of hope that
flashed about her when people brought
her news of feverish, bright changes in
his failing strength the cheerful mes
sages he sent her by her mother-that he
enioyed the custards which she sent,
that he had a quiet night; the confident,
calm, clinging which he had himself to
life, never touched the steady undercur-
rent of the knowledge in her that Azrael
would die.
1t seems to those of us who have heard
something of Rachael Fross' history, in
that summer, now so far behind her
troubled, strong, young life, that that
fiction would fOreOrdain itself suicide
which should make so audacious an at
tempt upon the courtesy of our credence
as is made by this plain, true tale.
That AZrael Craven should have been
suffered to die, lying just across the
street, the windows of his sick room in
sight from Rachers little chamber,
withought a sight of his promised wife,
] SttillS W US d ldtt w SiiAII at III " =
find our eyes have filed.
1t seemed to Rachel hard. Yet the
sternly nurtured woman accepted her lot
with certain calm. She felt it to be
inherently inevitable. For the most part
she did not question it.
The Puritan blood in her veins ran
with a powerful repression, which was
not unlike repose.
When she sat, at dead of night, shiver-
| ing at her window, to watch the sick
| light burning and waning in AZraeFs
] room; when she stretched her arms out
! to it in the black, chill air, thinking
weakly how Azraels life was burning
and waning with the tiny spark when
she went down into the gray morning,
waiting for chance word of the dying
mans condition, watching for chance
stir about the house which held him,
shrinking when they said, 'tHe rests,
compelled to exhaust the yearning of her
exiled heart toward his in foolish jelly
that she made him, in pale, proper,
useless flower that she sent, she did not
think that fate had treated her unkindly.
! She said s'It is the sovereign will of
God" Rachel had heard a great deal
about the sovereignty of God not much
about His tenderness. If His awful
presence held a rich compassion for a
woman who must be ''maidenly," fol
Southampton's sake, though Azrael lay
diving, it was darling fancy; He had
many things to occupy his great, eternal
thought. How could it be?"
Once heI young life rebelled with al
its might against this thought.
1t was a rainy night and very dark
AZrael Craven had been worse all day
in much distress and weakness. He
mother had given her to understand this
with some reluctance, and set her some
household task, Rachel thought, 10 AVOID
any further comment on the facts.
When this was finished Rachel slipped
away and out of the back door into tho
little dripping yard. She found thu
house too strait for her. She could no
breatha. She felt benumbed. The ach'
in her heart ran, an actual pain, all NJ
and down her feverish young limbs
She threw her shawl over her head
gathered her dress-skirt wrong side ou