THE BROADER MEANING

It is surprising how quickly any situation can be assimilated. Be it ever so pleasant or ever so painful, we get accustomed to its demands surprisingly soon, and whether it is the fact that one has just gotten a fortune, or just gotten the toothache, in either case it seems as if one had had it always, before one has hardly had it at all.

Lassie learned this with great rapidity. Before three days had passed by, she discovered that the deep and earnest joy in Alva's mind had eradicated all the horror in her own. Alva's love ceased to seem shocking—it seemed, instead, more like some beautiful, mysterious wonder. Lassie came to hear her friend talk without any distress—only with a sort of wistful ignorance—a longing to fathom depths not before even apprehended.

"It doesn't strike me as it did at first at all," she said to Ingram one night, as they went for the mail together. "All that I think of now is how happy she looks. Did you ever see any one look as happy as she does?"

"She's very happy, surely," said Ingram; "but what uses me up is that she is looking forward so. Why, that man is dying—he may die any day—and she thinks that he will come here. He can't ever come here, not possibly!"

"Oh, can't he?" Lassie cried, in real distress, "are you sure of that?"

"Of course. He knows it, too."

"But she doesn't know it?"

"No."

"Don't you think that he ought to tell her, then?"

Ingram did not speak for a minute. "Perhaps some miracle may come to pass, and he may live," he said then; "you see, he has lived three weeks longer than any man in his circumstances ought to expect to live."

"Oh, then he hasn't got to die soon?"

Ingram knit his brows in the dark. "I can't explain myself clearly," he said; "but it seems to me that he and Alva sort of rise above rules, so to speak. Part of the time she's as she always was—just as we are—and then again I feel as if she herself had gone and left me sitting with just a figure of some sort.—" He paused. "I expect he's the same way," he added, after a second; "it's all beyond me."

"It's strange, isn't it?" Lassie spoke thoughtfully. "She's very sweet and lovely, and dear with it all. But I know just what you mean; I've seen it, too. She is talking, and then she stops and that white look comes over her face, and I never speak then until she does. Do you know," she said, almost timidly, "I keep thinking of things I've read in books about the Middle Ages,—about saints; about 'ecstasy,' they called it. We say 'ecstasies' about hats, or little dogs, or the flowers at Easter; but when Alva has been talking about her life in that house and stops to think, and I see her face, I feel as if I understood what the word really and truly meant."

"I suppose there's no danger of her converting you," said Ingram; "it's all very well for her, but I should hate to have you that way."

"Why?" asked the girl, in surprise.

"It isn't human, that's why," the man declared, energetically. "We're past the Middle Ages," he added, with a little laugh, "far past now."

"You think that people can be too good?"

"Yes, I do. I wouldn't marry a woman like her for anything!"

"But you thought differently once," said Lassie, shyly.

"Yes," he said, easily, "I wanted to marry her once, but she wouldn't have it at all. Droll—isn't it?"

"We're ever so far by the post-office; do you know it?" she said.

"So we are; I'd forgotten all about the mail."

They turned back.

"But I don't believe that Alva ever could make you see life in the way that she does," Ingram said, tentatively; "does she ever try?"

"I don't think so," said Lassie; "she just talks to me of her happiness."

"What would become of the world, I wonder, if every one adopted her views," suggested the man.

They turned in at Mrs. Ray's gate just here. The mail was distributed, and every one else had taken theirs and gone.

"Well, you're a little late," said Mrs. Ray, cheerfully. "Mary Cody run up for the house letters when she saw you go by. Have a nice walk?"

"Yes, very," said Ingram.

"You're great walkers down your way. Mrs. Lathbun and her daughter walk all day long, seems to me."

"They do walk a good deal," said Lassie.

Then she and Ingram went back to the hotel. They found Alva standing by the dining-room door with her lamp and her letters in her hand. Mrs. O'Neil stood close before her.

"I wouldn't worry," said Alva to Mrs. O'Neil; "I don't believe one word of it."

"When they're out to-morrow I shall sweep the room myself," said Mrs. O'Neil, decidedly; "you can learn a good deal about people by sweeping their room." Then they all separated, Ingram going to his letters, their hostess to her husband, and Alva and Lassie to their cosy nest up-stairs.

"What was the matter?" Lassie asked, directly their doors were shut.

"Nothing especial," Alva said, laughing; "it was just that Mrs. Ray came here this afternoon and rather upset Mrs. O'Neil by talking about Mrs. Lathbun and her daughter."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything in particular—she just talked."

"What did she talk, then?"

"She talked all sorts of things; she doesn't like them at all. She doesn't consider them nice."

Lassie was silent. She was conscious of a painful lack of admiration for either Mrs. Lathbun or her daughter, herself.

A freight train began to roll by and ended conversation for the time being. Alva went to the window and stood there. After a while she spoke musingly.

"Everything must have a purpose. Every action has to have a thought behind it. If we could only see through the veil!"

The train, which had come to a standstill, now began to move again, cracking and straining at first, then going on with a terrific roar.

"They serve their purpose surely—the freight trains," Alva said; "even if they did nothing else, their noise accomplishes something. One might forget life so easily in this corner of the world, if it were not for them."

Lassie laughed. "But they serve a few more purposes than that."

"Yes, of course. I never deny the broader meaning in life—if the world's view is the broader one—but trains mean such a great deal besides what they carry, in a little bit of a town. I used to think that they came pretty close to being all the meaning that life had to the people there, and I still wonder sometimes if it isn't so. I've lived here well over one week now, and really it seems to me that the trains, their comings and goings, and whether they do them on time or not, are the only topics of conversation that are ever broached."

"Perhaps they talk about other things when we're not around," suggested Lassie, wisely.

"I hadn't thought of that. Or perhaps they think the trains our only mutual interest. You know, Lassie, there really is no one that is stupid, unless you do your half towards being stupid, too. It's like the crash in the wilderness, which doesn't mean sound unless there are ears to hear it."

"I never thought of that," said Lassie; "isn't there really any sound in the wilderness? What happens when the tigers roar?"

"But of course they do talk about other things here," Alva continued, paying no attention to her friend's flippancy. "They talk about the dam, and they talk about me."

"What do you suppose they say about you?" Lassie asked, curiously.

"I know exactly what they say," Alva replied, a real amusement curling her lips; "they say that Ronald and I are going to be married and live in that house while he builds the dam."

"Oh!"

"Yes, indeed."

"But I didn't know that the dam was decided on."

"It isn't, my dear, and I don't believe myself that there ever will be any dam. I can't believe that this State, even in her grossest materialism, will have the face to accept a royal gift and then turn around and give it away in direct contradiction of the terms of its acceptance."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"It's very bad. That dear old gentleman has made the preservation of this wonder of nature the realized dream of his whole life. He's carried through no end of other big philanthropic schemes, but he never for one instant allowed anything to turn him aside from this one. He told me himself how he had rewooded the banks—he has planted thousands and thousands of trees—and now to have the whole threatened. It's shameful, shameful!"

"Does every one know how you feel?"

"Yes, every one knows how I feel."

"What do they think themselves?"

"I believe the predominant sentiment in Ledge is that it will be entertaining to see Ledgeville drowned for good and all."

Lassie laughed.

The freight train was all gone by now. Alva turned from the window and came back to a seat beside her friend, sinking upon it with a little sigh.

"All this goes very near with me, dear," she said, gently; "loving Nature and fighting for the future has been his life-work, you know."

"Yes," Lassie said, softly.

Suddenly the older one leaned close and put her arms about the young girl. "It's so heaven-blessed to have you here,—it makes me so happy."

"I'm very happy, too," said Lassie. "I never had just the feeling before in my life that I have with you these days—it's as if nothing could ever come between us. Sort of as if we had been sealed to a compact."

Alva patted the brown waves of hair. "That's the understanding of true friendship, dear," she said; "nothing ever can come between us. Once two people realize mutual truth, how can anything come between them again? All the trouble in the world arises out of falseness. Search in your mind, and see if it isn't so?"

Lassie reflected. "You're putting so many new ideas into my head," she said, "I suppose I'll go home with nothing of my old self left in me."

"Not quite that," said Alva. "Your old self wasn't so bad, Lassie, dear. But the world has a way of hammering all its votaries into a certain set of molds, and I'd like to see you casting, instead of cast,—do you know the difference?"

"Alva," said Lassie, with sudden appealing earnestness, "you weren't like this when I saw you last; what changed you?"

"I had the convictions then, but not the courage. Now I have the courage, too."

"What gave you the courage?"

"Surely you can divine?"

"Love."

"Yes, dear, love. Love for him. All courage has its root in love of some kind."

"Alva, you teach me more each day."

"Yes, and I'll teach you more and more and more yet, and so on and so on until we part, and then I'll go on learning myself."

"Hasn't your lesson any end?"

"Love hasn't any end, dear, any more than it has any beginning. And so my lesson hasn't any end, either."

"But—"

"I know what you are going to say, but that isn't real love. That which can end has never been,—all the real things in existence are eternal."

"But they—the people that—well, you know, they thought that it was love—didn't they?"

"Yes, dear, and little children think that there are bears in dark closets, and ever so many people think that money buys happiness. The world is full of lies, Lassie, but if one puts the test to them they all fade away. You don't understand yet—but wait."

"I want to understand."

"But you are not ready to understand yet."

"But I am ready, I will learn to be ready."

"Yes, and I'm going to teach you. But I have to go slowly because I have to hunt for the words. You are such a little thing—such a baby—to be trusted with life; because you see most people never live—they just exist. They are only a few steps up on the staircase, and when they are dragged or pushed above the place that they are in by nature, they are apt to be dizzy. I want to teach you life, Lassie; but I don't want to make you dizzy." She paused, and a whimsical little smile danced across her face; "and besides, dear, we must get undressed. It is after ten o'clock."

"Just a minute more, Alva; it seems as if I cannot break off right here. And I won't be dizzy. I know that whatever you think and do must be right and best. I want to learn to think just as you do. I want to be told how you learned. I always knew you were so very good, and truly, dear, I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd chosen to marry a missionary or to go to that island where the lepers are—not after the first minute, you know; it would have been just like you."

"Oh, no, Lassie, it wouldn't have been like me at all. For ever so many reasons. My first duty in life—the duty that comes before every other—is to my father and mother. No claim could be strong enough to justify my leaving them; and then, besides, I'm not a Christian, except in the sense that I believe with Christ, and that isn't enough for any mission or any leper nowadays."

There was a little pause; then Lassie said: "But you are going to leave your father and mother now, aren't you?"

Alva smiled. "But for such a little while, dear," she said, gently; "you forget how short the time is to be!" There was an instant's pause and then she turned suddenly and her face had the bright color of deep emotion flaming in it. "Lassie, Lassie," she exclaimed, with a strength of feeling that startled the other into a sudden cry, "I'm trying to be calm, I'm trying to talk to you quietly,—I don't want you to think me a mad woman,—but I am so much closer to some other keener, sharper world of soul and sensation than you or any one can realize, that I can hardly curb myself to the dull, unknowing, unfeeling, throb, throb, of this one. Don't you know, Lassie, that people are getting married every day,"—she stopped and pressed her hands tightly together, her eyes starring the pallor of her face with that curious radiance of which the young girl had spoken to Ronald. "Oh," she went on, "to think that people are getting married every day because they need cooks or because they need care, or because the man has money or because the girl is pretty, and they go forth un-understanding, and they live along somehow; and the word that means their sort of companionship is all that I can use to speak of the evening that I shall return here, his wife, and fall on my knees beside him and realize that all my loneliness and waiting and hoping has ended, and that at last—at last—we are to be together, even if only for a few weeks, a few days, a few hours. A foretaste of eternity! A memory of what was in the beginning of all things!"

Ceasing to speak, she clasped her hands more tightly yet, and her eyes closed slowly. Lassie sat still and trembling. Her breath came unevenly, but she saw that Alva's swept in and out of her bosom with a wide evenness that belies unconquered emotion. After a minute the other opened her eyes and laid her hand lightly upon the girl's head. "I frighten you, I know that I frighten you," she said; "you think that I am crazy after all."

"No, I don't, Alva; but I can't think what kind of a man the man can be to make you feel that marrying him will be so different from marrying any other man."

"You can't think, because you don't know what love can mean to people—what it has meant to him or what it has meant to me."

Then she sprang up and began to undress herself rapidly.

"I don't see how you can bring yourself back to earth, Alva, after you have felt like that."

Alva smiled. "But we must live on the earth, Lassie, and be of the earth. We are made for the earth. God gave us our souls, and he gave us our bodies, too. And he meant both to work together."

Lassie sat still and meditative. She had herself been carried out beyond her depth and could not get back easily. She was, in truth, a little dizzy.