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Ebook has 1475 lines and 68135 words, and 30 pages

CHAPTER

CONSCIENCE;

OR,

THE TRIALS OF MAY BROOKE.

UNCLE STILLINGHAST.

"Do you think they will be here to-night, sir?"

"Don't know, and don't care."

"The road is very bad,"--after a pause, "that skirts the Hazel property."

"Well, what then; what then, little May?"

"The carriage might be overturned, sir; or, the horses might shy a little to the left, and go over the precipice into the creek."

"Is that all?"

"Is it not dreadful to think of, sir?"

"Well, I don't know; I should be sorry to lose the horses--"

"Oh, sir! and my cousin! Did you forget her?"

"But, sir, you have been very kind to me, and it shall be the endeavor of my life to prove my gratitude."

"Very fine, without being in the least consoling! I'd as lief have two African monkeys under my care--don't laugh--it exasperates, and makes me feel like doing as I should do, if I had the cursed animals--"

"How is that, sir?"

"Beat you. I hate womankind. Most of all do I hate them in their transition stages. They are like sponges, and absorb every particle of evil that the devil sprinkles in the air, until they learn to be young hypocrites--triflers--false--heartless."

"Oh, dear uncle! has such been your experience? Have you ever met with such women?"

"Have I ever met with such women, you holy innocent? I have never met with any other. Now, be still."

"Oh! Uncle Stillinghast--"

"What!"

"I pity you, sir; indeed, I pity you. Something very dreadful must in times past have embittered you--"

"You are a fool, little May. Don't interrupt me again at your peril."

"No, sir."

"Thank God! They are come. I am sure I hear carriage-wheels, uncle!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together.

"My uncle?"

"Yes, I have the misfortune to be your uncle; how do you do?"

"I am well, sir, I thank you," she replied, whilst she cast down her eyes to conceal the tears which suffused them.

"Do not mind him, dear Helen; it is his ways: he seems rough and stern, but in reality he is kind and good, dear," she exclaimed.

"You are very kind; but, oh, I did not expect such a reception as this. I hoped for something very, very different. I cannot stay here--it would kill me," she sobbed, struggling to disengage her hand from Mary's.

"Yes you will, dear," pleaded May. "Uncle Stillinghast is like our old clock--it never strikes the hour true, yet the hands are always right to a second. So do try, and not to mind."

"Who are you?"

"I?" asked May, looking with a smile of astonishment at her. "I am your cousin, May Brooke; an orphan like yourself, dear, to whom our uncle has given house and home."

"Are you happy here?"

"Very happy. I have things to contend with sometimes which are not altogether agreeable, but I trip along over them just as I do over muddy places in the street, for fear, you know, of soiling my robe, if I floundered in them!" said May, laughing. Helen did not understand the hidden and beautiful meaning couched under May's expressions; she had heard but little of her baptismal robe since the days of her early childhood, and had almost forgotten that she was "to carry it unspotted to the judgment-seat of Christ."

"I am glad you are here--such a nice, soft-voiced little one," said Helen, passing her long, white hand over May's head.

"I am glad, too; so come with me, and take something warm. Your supper is on the kitchen hearth. Come," said May, rising.

"Where--to the kitchen? Do you eat in the kitchen?"

"I lunch there sometimes; it is a very nice one."

"Excuse me; I do not wish any thing."

"But a cup of hot tea, and some nice toast, after your fatiguing, wet journey," argued May.

"Nothing, I thank you," was the haughty reply.

"Perhaps you wish to retire?"

"Yes! Oh, that I could go to sleep, and never wake again," she cried, bursting into tears.

"You will feel better to-morrow, dear," said May, gently, "and then it will soothe you to reflect that each trial has its heavenly mission; and the thorns which pierce us here give birth to flowers in heaven, which angels weave into the crown for which we contend!"

"I am not a saint!" was the curt reply.

"But you are a Catholic?" asked May, chilled by her cold manner.

"Yes," she replied, languidly, "but I am too ill to talk."

Refusing all aid, after they got into their chamber, Helen disrobed herself; and while May's earnest soul was pouring out at the foot of the cross its adoration and homage, she threw herself on her knees, leaned her head on her arm, and yielded to a perfect storm of grief and fury; which, although unacknowledged, raged none the less, while her burning tears, unsanctified by humility, or resignation, embittered the selfish heart which they should have sweetened and refreshed.

MAY BROOKE.

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