American fiction -- 19th century; Artists -- Fiction
"I now believe in your 'remedies,' Miss Burton; but a great deal
depends on who administers them. My little girl and I have been
discovering how nearly related we are."
Her eyes grew moist with her sympathy and gladness. "Mr. Mayhew,"
she said, "I'm inclined to think that heaven is always within a
step or two of us, if we could only take the right steps."
"To me it has seemed beyond the farthest star," he replied, very
gravely. "To some, however, the word is as indefinite as the place,
and a cessation of pain appears heaven. I could be content to ask
nothing better than this Sabbath morning has brought me. I have
found what I thought lost forever."
Jennie Burton became very pale, as deep from her heart rose the
query, "Shall I ever find what I have lost?" Then with a strong
instinct to maintain her self-control and shun a perilous nearness
to her hidden sorrow, she changed the subject.
It was touching to see how often Mr. Mayhew's eyes turned towards
his daughter, as if to reassure himself that the change in her
manner towards him was not a dream, and the expression of her face
as she met his scrutiny seemed to brighten and cheer him like a
coming dawn.
"What heavenly magic is transforming Miss Mayhew?" Jennie Burton
asked of Van Berg, as they sauntered out on the piazza.
"With your wonted felicity, you express it exactly," he replied.
"It is a heavenly magic which I don't understand in the least,
but must believe in, since cause and effect are directly under my
eyes. It has been my good fortune to witness as beautiful a scene
as ever mortal saw. Since she refers naturally and openly to the
friends whom she has visited during the past week, I may tell you
about Mr. Eltinge's influence and teaching without violating any
confidence," and in harmony with the frank and friendly relations
which he now sustained to Miss Burton, he related his experience
of the previous day, remaining scrupulously reticent on every
point, however, that he even imagined Ida would wish veiled from
the knowledge of others. "I cannot tell you," he concluded, "how
deeply the scene affected me. It not only awoke all the artist in
me, but the man also. In one brief hour I learned to revere that
noble old gentleman, and if you could have seen him leaning against
the emblematic tree, as I did, I think he would have realized your
ideal of age, wholly devoid of weakness and bleakness. And then
Miss Mayhew's face, as she read and listened to him, seemed indeed,
in its contrast with what we have seen during the past summer, the
result of 'heavenly magic.' It will be no heavy task to fulfil the
conditions on which I was permitted to enter the enchanted garden.
They expect more pencil sketches, but I shall eventually give them
as truthful a picture as I am capable of painting, for it is rare
good fortune to find themes so inspiring."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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