worrying yourself into a fever, my dear,” said the doctor smiling, “and I can’t afford such patients as you. Where can I have this bunch of radish-seed hung up to dry? Give it to Thisbe to hang in the kitchen.”
“Now, my dear Joseph, how can you be so unreasonable!” cried Mrs Luttrell, half whimpering. “Radish-seed at a time like this! Thisbe is re-covering the pots of jam.”
“What jam? What for?”
“For Millicent. You don’t suppose I’m going to let her begin housekeeping without a pot of jam in the storeroom!”
“Thank goodness I’ve only one child!” said the doctor with a half-amused, half-vexed countenance.
“Why, papa, you always said you wished we had had a boy.”
“Ah, I did not know that I should have to suffer all this when the wedding time came.”
“Now, if you would only go into your garden, and see to your patients, my love, everything would go right!” cried Mrs Luttrell; “but you are so impatient! Look at Millicent, how quiet and calm she is!”
The doctor had looked at Millicent as she stole out to him in the garden – often now, as if moved by a desire to be as much with him as she could before the great step of her life was taken.
There was a quiet look of satisfaction in her eyes that told of her content, and the happy peace that reigned within her breast.
The doctor understood her, as she came to him when at work, questioning him about the blossoms of this rose, and the success of that creeper, and taking endless interest in all he did; and when she was summoned away to try something on, or to select some pattern, she smiled and said that she would soon be back.
“Ah!” he said with a sigh, “she is trying to break it off gently!” and his work ceased until he heard her step, when he became very busy and cheerful again, as they both played at hiding from one another the separation that was to come.
“Poor papa!” thought Millicent, “he will miss me when I am gone!”
“If that fellow does not behave well to her,” said the doctor to himself, “and I do happen to be called in to him, I shall – well, I suppose it would not be right to do that.” As for Mrs Luttrell, she was too busy to think much till she went to bed, and then the doctor complained.
“I must have some rest, my dear!” he said plaintively, “and I don’t say that you will – but if you do have a bad face-ache from sleeping on a pillow soaked with tears, don’t come to me to prescribe.”
It was very near the time, and all was gliding on peacefully towards the wedding-day. Hallam came regularly every evening; and, after a good deal of struggling, Mrs Luttrell contrived to call him “my dear,” while, by a similar effort of mind, the doctor habituated himself, from saying, “Mr Hallam” and “Hallam,” to the familiar “Robert,” though in secret both agreed that it did not seem natural, and did not come easily, and never would be Rob or Bob.
One soft, calm evening, as the moon was rising from behind the fine old church, and Millicent and Hallam lingered still in the garden among the shrubs, where they could see the shaded lamp shining down on Mrs Luttrell’s white curls and pleasant, intent face, as she busily stitched away at a piece of linen for the new house, while the doctor was reading an account of some new plants brought home by Sir Joseph Banks, Millicent had become very silent.
Hallam was holding her tenderly to his side, and looking down at the sweet, calm face, lit by the rising moon, his own in shadow; and after watching her rapt aspect for a time, he said, in his deep, musical voice:
“How silent and absorbed! You are not regretting what is so soon to be?”
“Regretting!” she cried, starting; and, looking up in his face, she laid her hands upon his breast. “Don’t speak to me like that, Robert dear. You know me better. As if I could regret!”
“Then you are quite happy?”
“Happy? Too happy; and yet so sad!” she murmured softly. “It seems as if life were too full of joy, as if I could not bear so much happiness, when it is at the cost of others, and I am giving them pain.”
“Don’t speak like that, my own!” he said tenderly. “It is natural that a woman should leave father and mother to cling unto her husband.”
“Yes, yes: I know,” she sighed; “but the pain is given. They will miss me so much. You are smiling, dear; but this is not conceit. I am their only child, and we have been all in all to each other.”
“But you are not going far,” he said tenderly.
“No, not far; and yet it is away from them,” sighed Millicent, turning her head to gaze sadly at the pleasant picture seen through the open window. “Not far: but it is from home.”
“But to home,” he whispered – “to your home, our home, the home of the husband who loves you with all his heart. Ah, Millicent, I have been so poor a wooer, I have failed to say the winning, flattering things so pleasant to a woman’s ear. I have felt half dumb before you, as if my pleasure was too great for words; and quick and strong as I am with my fellows, I have only been an awkward lover at the best.”
She laid her soft white hand upon his lips, and gave him a half-reproachful look.
“And yet,” she said, smiling, “how much stronger your silent wooing has been than any words that could have been said! Did I ever seem like one who wanted flattering words and admiration? Robert, you do not know me yet.”
“No,” he whispered passionately, “not yet, and never shall, for I find something more in you to love each time we meet, Millicent – my own – my wife!”
She yielded to his embrace, and they remained silent for a time.
At last he spoke.
“But you seemed sad and disappointed to-night. Have I grieved you in any way – have I given you pain?”
“Oh, no,” she said, looking gravely in his face, “and you never could. Robert,” she continued dreamily as she clung to him, “I can see our life mapped out in the future till it fades away. There are pains and sorrows, the thorns that strew the wayside of all; but I have always your strong, guiding arm to help and protect – always your brave, loving words, to sustain me when my spirit will be low, and together, hand in hand, we tread that path, patient, hopeful, loving to the end.”
“My own!” he whispered.
“I have no fear,” she continued; “my love was not given hastily, like that of some quickly dazzled girl; my love was slow to awaken; but when I felt that it was being sought by one whom I could reverence as well as love, I gave it freely – all I had.”
“And you are content?”
“I should be truly happy, but for the pain I must give others.”
“Only a pang, dear love; that will pass away in the feeling that their child is truly happy in her choice. There, there, the moonlight and the solemn look of the night have made you sad. Let us talk more cheerfully. Come, you must have something to ask of me?”
“No; you have told me everything,” she said gravely. “I wish they could have been here to give their blessing on our love.”
“Their
