'Thy noble heart hath many chambers, Pierre; the records of thy wealth, I see, are not bound up in the one poor book of Isabel, my brother. Thou art a visible token, Pierre, of the invisible angelhoods, which in our darker hours we do sometimes distrust. The gospel of thy acts goes very far, my brother. Were all men like to thee, then were there no men at all, — mankind extinct in seraphim!"
"Praises are for the base, my sister, cunningly to entice them to fair Virtue by our ignorings of the ill in them, and our imputings of the good not theirs. So make not my head to hang, sweet Isabel. Praise me not. Go on now with thy tale."
"I have said to thee, my brother, how most dreary I found it here, and from the first. Wonted all my life to sadness-if it be such-still, this house hath such acuteness in its general grief, such hopelessness and despair of any slightest remedy-that even poor Bell could scarce abide it always, without some little going forth into contrasting scenes. So I went forth into the places of delight, only that I might return more braced to minister in the haunts of woe. For continual unchanging residence therein, doth but bring on woe's stupor, and make us as dead. So I went forth betimes; visiting the neighboring cottages; where there were chattering children, and no one place vacant at the cheerful board. Thus at last I chanced to hear of the Sewing Circle to be held at the Miss Pennies'; and how that they were anxious to press into their kind charity all the maidens of the country round. In various cottages, I was besought to join; and they at length persuaded me; not that I was naturally loth to it, and needed such entreaties; but at first I felt great fear, lest at such a scene I might closely encounter some of the Glendinnings; and that thought was then namelessly repulsive to me. But by stealthy inquiries I learned, that the lady of the manorial-house would not be present;-it proved deceptive information;-but I went; and all the rest thou knowest."
"I do, sweet Isabel, but thou must tell it over to me; and all thy emotions there."
V
"Though but one day hath passed, my brother, since we first met in life, yet thou hast that heavenly magnet in thee, which draws all my soul's interior to thee. I will go on.-Having to wait for a neighbor's wagon, I arrived but late at the Sewing Circle. When I entered, the two joined rooms were very full. With the farmer's girls, our neighbors, I passed along to the further corner, where thou didst see me; and as I went, some heads were turned, and some whisperings I heard, of-'She's the new help at poor Walter Ulver's-the strange girl they've got-she thinks herself 'mazing pretty, I'll be bound;-but nobody knows her-oh, how demure! — but not over-good, I guess;-I wouldn't be her, not I-mayhap she's some other ruined Delly, run away;-minx!' It was the first time poor Bell had ever mixed in such a general crowded company; and knowing little or nothing of such things, I had thought, that the meeting being for charity's sweet sake, uncharity could find no harbor there; but no doubt it was mere thoughtlessness, not malice in them. Still, it made my heart ache in me sadly; for then I very keenly felt the dread suspiciousness, in which a strange and lonely grief invests itself to common eyes; as if grief itself were not enough, nor innocence any armor to us, but despite must also come, and icy infamy! Miserable returnings then I had- even in the midst of bright-budding girls and full-blown women-miserable returnings then I had of the feeling, the bewildering feeling of the inhumanities I spoke of in my earlier story. But Pierre, blessed Pierre, do not look so sadly and half-reproachfully upon me. Lone and lost though I have been, I love my kind; and charitably and intelligently pity them, who uncharitably and unintelligently do me despite. And thou, thou, blessed brother, hath glorified many somber places in my soul, and taught me once for all to know, that my kind are capable of things which would be glorious in angels. So look away from me, dear Pierre, till thou hast taught thine eyes more wonted glances."
"They are vile falsifying telegraphs of me, then, sweet Isabel. What my look was I can not tell, but my heart was only dark with ill-restrained upbraidings against heaven that could unrelentingly see such innocence as thine so suffer. Go on with thy too-touching tale."
"Quietly I sat there sewing, not brave enough to look up at all, and thanking my good star, that had led me to so concealed a nook behind the rest: quietly I sat there, sewing on a flannel shirt, and with each stitch praying God, that whatever heart it might be folded over, the flannel might hold it truly warm; and keep out the wide-world-coldness which I felt myself; and which no flannel, or thickest fur, or any fire then could keep off from me; quietly I sat there sewing, when I heard the announcing words-oh, how deep and ineffaceably engraved they are! — 'Ah, dames, dames, Madam Glendinning, — Master Pierre Glendinning.' Instantly, my sharp needle went through my side and stitched my heart; the flannel dropped from my hand; thou heard'st my shriek. But the good people bore me still nearer to the casement close at hand, and threw it open wide; and God's own breath breathed on me; and I rallied; and said it was some merest passing fit-'twas quite over now-I was used to it-they had my heart's best thanks-but would they now only leave me to myself, it were best for me;-I would go on and sew. And thus it came and passed away; and again I sat sewing on the flannel, hoping either that the unanticipated persons would soon depart, or else that some spirit would catch me away from there; I sat sewing on-till, Pierre! Pierre! — without looking up-for that I dared not do at any time that evening-only once-without looking up, or knowing aught but the flannel on my knee, and the needle in my heart, I felt, — Pierre, felt-a glance of magnetic meaning on me. Long, I, shrinking, sideways turned to meet it, but could not; till some helping spirit seized me, and all my soul looked up at thee in my full-fronting face. It was enough. Fate was in that moment. All the loneliness of my life, all the choked longings of my soul, now poured over me. I could not away from them. Then first I felt the complete deplorableness of my state; that while thou, my brother, had a mother, and troops of aunts and cousins, and plentiful friends in city and in country-I, I, Isabel, thy own father's daughter, was thrust out of all hearts' gates, and shivered in the winter way. But this was but the least. Not poor Bell can tell thee all the feelings of poor Bell, or what feelings she felt first. It was all one whirl of old and new bewilderings, mixed and slanted with a driving madness. But it was most the sweet, inquisitive, kindly interested aspect of thy face, — so strangely like thy father's, too-the one only being that I first did love-it was that which most stirred the distracting storm in me; most charged me with the immense longings for some one of my blood to know me, and to own me, though but once, and then away. Oh, my dear brother-Pierre! Pierre! — couldst thou take out my heart, and look at it in thy hand, then thou wouldst find it all over written, this way and that, and crossed again, and yet again, with continual lines of longings, that found no end but in suddenly calling thee. Call him! Call him! He will come! — so cried my heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that night went home. But pride rose up-the very pride in my own longings, — and as one arm pulled, the other held. So I stood still, and called thee not. But Fate will be Fate, and it was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful glance; once having seen the full angelical-ness in thee, my whole soul was undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and soon showed a blighting in the bud; which spread deep into my whole being, till I knew, that utterly decay and die away I must, unless pride let me go, and I, with the one little trumpet of a pen, blew my heart's shrillest blast, and called dear Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as my beseeching ink went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their mite, and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly tear-mingled ink- that last depth of my anguish-would never be visibly known to thee, but the tears would dry upon the page, and all be fair again, ere the so submerged-freighted letter should meet thine eye."