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A VIOLENT thumping was heard at the door of Willow
Croft, which, before it could be properly noticed, answered
itself, and burst into the house in the obese and burly shape
of Climper, of Climper's, or rather of Merrywater. He had
on a farmer's frock, and brandished a large whip in his hand.
“I am an odd fish,” he said; “I know I am. People abuse
me, and I let them alone; — that is odd. They are kind to
me, and I am kind to them; — that is odd. They won't be
happy, and I make them happy; — that, again, is odd. Out
of this,” — he touched Richard with his whip, — “no more
sulking! You would n't dance with Mrs. Melbourne, and I
made you; and she likes it, and has had some more of it,
and I mean she shall have more yet. I love to please people.
Forward!”

This was concise and forcible, — rather too much so for
Richard, in his present weak state. He would fain have an
explanation. The commentary was as obscure as the text.
But Richard learned as much as this, — that Climper liked
Richard and the Governor's Family; — there may have been
cause from the fact that the Governor and his Family, and the
coaches belonging to Munk, Richard's brother-in-law, often
visited Merrywater, and were profitable customers of Climper;—
that he had heard of the rupture between them, and possessed,
as he imagined, a clue to the origin of it in Clover.
This fellow had been at Merrywater with Miss Eyre. Once,
being out with them on the pond, and drowsily tending the

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tiller, and, as they thought, sleeping, he overheard Clover
urging Miss Eyre to the assault of Richard, and particularly
suggesting the method of approach, through Mrs. Melbourne.
He thought little of it at the time,—believed Richard
could take care of himself. But a party, comprising
Captain Creamer, Mangil, Helen the Good, and Miss Freeling,
being at his house, told him of the disastrous and irretrievable
result. This man cherished, moreover, a particular
disrelish for Clover, who ran up bills at Merrywater
which he never paid, and plagued Climper by a little yelping
terrier that he took with him. Coming to Woodylin
with a load of vegetables for the Market, he went to Willow
Croft with purposes that he whimsically and characteristically
unfolded.

He would lead Richard to the Governor's. Richard drew
back. “That's pleasant,” said he. “I like opposition. It
stimulates me. Forward! I'll cry fire, if you wish it, and
raise the neighbors. Shall I run off with one of the children?
Shall I go and let your hens out of the coop? Shall
I get the city crier to ring your dumpishness through the
streets, — or you will not start? He laid his hand on
Richard's collar. The children clung to their mother, who
was herself alarmed. “I am not much used to women and
children,” he said. “They are flesh, I suppose; and all
flesh is vanity. If Richard knew this, he would be wiser
than he is now. We must teach him.”

At this instant, Aunt Grint entered the room, in one of
her panics, though of a pleasanter sort than usual. “What
is it?” she exclaimed. “We heard crickets as lively as
could be! I could n't stop. I told Sally to mind the pot,
and I'd run out, and see.”

“We want this fellow to go to the Governor's,” replied
Climper, “and he is n't willing. It's a dreadful cross, but
he must bear it.”

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“That's it!” echoed the old woman. “I knew it was
something pleasant. I could n't stay to put up the dishes,
but come right out in the suds as I was. He shall go.”

If Climper pulled at Richard's collar, Aunt Grint seemed
to drub his shoulders.

Resistance was unavailing against this novel pertinacity.
Richard took his hat, and went with Climper. Reluctantly,
and with a shudder of trepidation, he allowed
himself to be taken to and through the Governor's gate, and
across the yard, and up the piazza, and face to face with the
great front-door. He must endure the heavy tramp of his
companion where he wished himself all cat's-paws, and his
violent ringing of the bell when there was not strength
enough in his own arm to shake a cob-web. Climper asked
for Mrs. Melbourne, and they were taken to the drawing-room.
Mrs. Melbourne appeared. She was formal and
reserved. She did not know to what she owed the honor of
the visit or the company. “To the pleasure I have in coming
to see you,” replied Climper, — “the same as people
come to see me.” “People often behave very rudely at your
house,” replied Mrs. Melbourne. “I know they do,” rejoined
Climper, “and that is what has brought me here.
This young man —”

“I thought you would refer to his conduct,” interrupted
the lady; “but you need not. We are too well informed.
We do not wish the subject broached in this way, Mr.
Climper.”

“There are some things you would be glad to know.”

“Nothing, — nothing.”

“There are some things I should like to tell you. I am
an odd man, — very odd; I love to tell the truth.”

“If anything more is to be said, I must call witnesses. I
am disinclined to personal communications relating to Mr.
Edney.”

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She left the room firmly, and returned with Miss Rowena,
Barbara, and Glendar, — a formidable troop, that
would have abashed anybody but Climper. Cousin took a
seat on the sofa by Richard. Barbara posted herself behind
the centre-table, where she thrust one hand into a book, as
if she would let agitation discharge at the ends of her fingers
into its leaves. Glendar sat very stiffly in a chair, with
his hand in his vest. It fell to Mrs. Melbourne to face the
occasion, and support its dignity.

Climper, in his way, related the plot Clover had concerted
against the peace of Richard and the Family.

“I know nothing of Clover, — neither do I desire to,”
interposed Mrs. Melbourne.

“Perhaps you do not,” rejoined Climper. “I always go
against people's feelings, you say. I cannot stop that now;—
you must know about him.”

“You will not insult my Aunt,” said Glendar.

“Nor you either, so long as you run up bills at Merrywater,
which I suppose your Aunt is to pay.”

Glendar grew more stiff in his chair, and seemed with the
hand in his vest to be clutching at his heart. Mrs. Melbourne
looked angrily at Climper, and worriedly at her
nephew. Cousin bit her lip very hard.

“There is nothing frightful in Clover.” Mrs. Melbourne
tried to laugh the matter off. Climper laughed harder, and
added, “You are right. I have got my heel upon him.”

“He is not a brute.” This was a fling at Climper himself.

“He loves dogs, and is a dog!”

“He is n't Miss Eyre; — you must know he is n't, Mr.
Climper; and that is where wickedness lies.”

Barbara trembled, and Richard, too.

“I have told you the truth about him,” continued Climper;
“and whether he is Miss Eyre or not, you can see. I

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rather guess Miss Eyre is n't him, and is somebody else, and
you would do well to think so. He is a villain; and if she
is n't him, perhaps she is n't a villain. Think of that. It
may do you all good to think of that. And I mean somebody
shall think of that. If you do not, and Miss Melicent
would come in, I would make her think of it.”

This allusion to Melicent brought Glendar to his feet, but
it did not anybody else. Spending himself in an effort to
stand, tired, the young man left the room, and was speedily
followed by his indignant Aunt.

Climper said, “My business was with Mrs. Melbourne,
and I will go,” — and took his leave.

No sooner was he out of the house than Mrs. Melbourne
returned, in haste, and flushed.

“We have been abused by that man. He was always a
brute!” she said.

“You are very kind to the brute creation, Mrs. Melbourne,”
said Cousin, softly.

This was better said than received. It raised a storm, in
which Richard would fain have got away.

“All this is nothing to the point,” said Mrs. Melbourne.
“You must see that it is n't, Rowena.” She did not deign
to address Richard.

“If it's Clover's doings —” Cousin Rowena began to say.

“'T is somebody's else doings!” Mrs. Melbourne said
this with a tone so terrible, and a look so scathing, Richard
could not contain himself, and quite abruptly left the house.

He did, however, hear other words which Mrs. Melbourne
uttered, with a loud and almost tragic emphasis —

“You must see, Barbara, that Clover's agency don't alter
Miss Eyre's wrongs, nor that fellow's baseness!”

These words, and the ring of the voice, adhered to Richard
all the way home.

CHAPTER XLIV. JUNIA FULFILS HER INTENTION.

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She came to the relief of Richard's spirits, and, as it
were, to the care of his hands; and in the last, perhaps,
carried out the idea of the first, since a little outward oversight
of this sort, and secular responsibility, could do him
no harm.

Simon brought her in the best manner Winkle could
devise. She entered softly and quietly, with an air of lofty
purpose, united to a sense of delicate position; her face
was not so much sickly pale, as subdued by spiritual concern;
her voice was sweet, but evening-like; her eye was
mellow with love and enthusiasm. She kissed Roxy and
the children.

After tea, she sat in the rocking-chair in the parlor.
Junia had a more southern cast than Violet; she was born,
her Grandfather used to say, in a warmer month. She had
dark eyes, and small and firm lips. The twilight, — that
blush with which Night introduces her starry train to the
world, — from over dun hills, crossing silent hollows and
entering the room through the cool trees Richard had
planted in the yard, — was reflected in the pure and exalted
fervor of her countenance. Was she, as one of the clouds
that floated in that burning expanse, turned for a brief
moment to flesh? Was she a Daughter of God, ready to
be offered on some altar of human sorrow? Her thin
fingers, the delicacy of her frame, and even the sculptured
precision of her features, indicated, that if of mortal essence,

[figure description] Page 423.[end figure description]

purged of mortal defilement, she was even then undergoing
translation.

“I have but one duty in life, Richard,” she said, “and
that is to thee; my next is to join the Immortals. The
recompense and fulfilment of my love, that has been growing
in the lonely places of thought, like the pitcher-plant,
and filling its cup with the dew and rain of an ideal good,
is to pour its contents on your parched life, and to see thee
blessed, thou greatly noble, and greatly wronged one!”

Almost as if she were divinely inspired, Richard was
subdued before Junia, and ventured no remonstrance to the
course of her inclinations.

She had changed since he saw her; she was feebler, but
more resolved, — less unreserved in her love, but more selfforgetful
in its intents, — very cheerful and very serious.

In two or three days, having worn off the fatigue of
her journey, she expressed a desire to visit the grave of
Violet.

Simon, who had risen from stable-boy to hack-driver, who
loved to serve Richard, and continued to sing, with new
pathos to Richard's ear, that melancholy refrain, like a fragment
from the ruin of some old dirge which he carried about
with him, was ordered to bring up the invalid coach.

Junia entered the parlor from her chamber, clad in white;
her dress and gloves were white, and a white rose-bud
adorned her hair. There was a singularly clear and luminous
effect in her person and attire; throughout, an unusual
carefulness showed, and her appearance was suggestive
almost of a bridal occasion, — an illusion which the pallid
ardor of her look rather heightened than destroyed. Fair to
the senses, her aspect was still more affecting to the imagination;
and Richard, sacredly moved, drew from under his

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vest, where he had so sadly worn it, the small golden cross,
which he reverently hung on her neck.

Simon's song was heard at the gate, and Junia, throwing
on her bonnet and shawl, left the house. Richard would
have done more than hand her into the carriage, — he would
go with her; but she said, “Not now.” He could do little
else than listen to the wailing cavatina of the boy, as he
drove off with the precious minister to his peace.

She was driven to Rosemary Dell. Under the shadows
of pines, and along circling walks, she wended her way to
the spot where Violet lay. A willow hung over the enclosure;
and those flowers that gave the sleeper her name, in
lowly beauty — little Vestal-fires of Nature — cherished
the sanctity of her grave. Junia leaned upon the willow,
and wept; in weeping she vented her sisterly sorrow, and
at the same time, as it were, moistened and bedewed the
springs of her own feeling. What went forth in sadness,
like the exhalation of troubled water, returned in gentle
showers of consolation and gladness to the wasting verdure
of her soul. “Soon, soon,” she said, “I shall be with you,
thou blessed one! I thank thee that I can weep for thee, —
I feel how nearly I am at one with thee! A mission which
thou wouldst bless, for the friend of us both, and for one
whom, oh my sister, thou couldst have loved, — an injured
one of earth, — is the brief distance I must travel, before I
come to thee, — and to you, Father, Mother, — and to Thee,
oh Saviour of men!”

Having finished her prayer, she returned to the carriage.

Did she perceive that Miss Eyre was in the cemetery,
alone, and apparently thoughtful and pensive, — like some
penitent Spirit of Evil, meditating among those vestiges of
decay? She was there; and with steadfast eye, — nor could
it be otherwise than with deep sensitiveness of heart, —

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behind contiguous shrubbery, she beheld the emotion of
Junia. She followed her as she left the place, and overheard
her direction to Simon, to Governor Dennington's.

We shall take the liberty to enter with Junia at the
Governor's, and while she waits reception, look at the state
of feeling the Family is in.

Miss Eyre had been summoned as a rejoinder to Climper.
She denied Clover's complicity with her affairs; — this to
Mrs. Melbourne. But to Miss Rowena, who questioned her
more at length, she admitted, not that her wrongs were less,
but that, her delicacy being greater, Clover appeared, and
not only recommended, but potentially and portentously
urged her to the course she had taken. Herein she spoke
absolute truth.

The Family, then, we cannot say were in a state of
doubt, but in a state of certainty, with its surface somewhat
ruffled. Mrs. Melbourne, however, was ruffled painfully, —
Cousin Rowena pleasantly. The latter rejoiced in the
agitation Climper had given the Family, and was glad
to feel anything like a disturbance in the career of those
terrible convictions down which she was rapidly tending.
Melicent, about whom all the interest and all the moods of
the Family gravitated, must listen to varied accounts, and
be torn by contending emotions.

Miss Eyre having become domiciled equally in Mrs.
Melbourne's heart and rooms, by a side door, entered the
house soon after Junia, and went to the chamber of her
friend.

Junia inquired for Melicent, whom she had seen in
Violet's sickness. Melicent did not recollect Junia. She
extended her hand to the pale figure before her, whose mingled
look of anxiety and earnestness, as well as the shadowy
features and pure attire, arrested her attention and kindled

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her fancy. “I am Junia,” said the latter. “When Violet
was sick, you were with us; you laid flowers on her bier.”

Melicent, moved by this recall of the past, and the vision
of the present, affectionately saluted her.

“I wish to speak of Richard.” Junia said this with an
emphasis that quite thrilled Melicent, who, at once surprised
and awed, echoed, “Richard!” In a moment, collecting
herself, she said, “If of that, come to my chamber,” —
whither they went.

“I came,” said Junia, when they were seated, “to interdece
for Richard. I know him to be pure and good. I
have long known him so. And you, Melicent, — you have
known him so. Your heart, your memory, your reason,
remind you of nothing else.”

Melicent became pale, — paler, even, than the speaker
before her.

“Do not think of that, — do not confuse yourself with
it at all,” continued Junia. “He has erred, — he may have
sinned; but his sin is not beyond forgiveness or removal.
It is lost in the depth of his piety, — it is swept away by
his virtues, as a leaf on the river.”

“I do not think of that,” answered Melicent, strongly
agitated; “I think beyond that, of him.”

“And he loves you!”

“Loves me?” cried Melicent.

“Loves you,” replied Junia, “with unmixed, unchanging
love, — loves as purely as an angel in heaven might love.”

“How can you know that? — alas! alas!”

“I know him,” replied Junia; “how, I cannot tell, — I
dare not tell. I know him, as your own heart knows him;—
and tell me, do you love him?”

“Ah!” cried Melicent; “where is that in my deepest

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heart which I once was, and worshipped, and lost, and
missed?”

“I recall it,” said Junia; “I bring it back.”

“To have once doubted,” said Melicent, “not that, for
that might be; but to doubt him, to fear him; to feel the
approach of vague, invisible possibilities, which smite and
stagger you, when you can do nothing; to have the venomous,
bitter uncertainties of things, like reptiles from the Dark
Mountains, get into your heart, and be shut in there, —
there, where a woman's longing, and hope, and ideal, are all
kept; to be once so disturbed and so sickened; — oh, what
is woman? What are you? What am I?”

“Hear me,” said Junia; “listen to me. I speak as a
woman.”

“A Great Evil,” rejoined Melicent, “has befallen me;
the Good Father knows why. Its terror chills my frame;
its darkness obscures my thought. O, Parent of the Universe,
teach thy child submission, — guide her heart!”
She started from her chair, and with mingled despair,
mournfulness, and hope, walked the room, wringing her
hands wildly. She flung herself on a seat in the embrasure
of the window, where the heavy tapestry concealed her face,
but could not hide the voice of her anguish.

Junia rose, and deliberately laid off her bonnet and shawl.
She approached Melicent, and solemnly knelt at her feet.
As if a flash of pathos, inspired by piety, had knelt before her,
the white array, ghostly complexion, and golden cross of
Junia, mystically aroused Melicent.

“What is this I see?” she exclaimed.

“The lover and the bride of Richard,” calmly replied
Junia. “Such I plead with thee for him —”

“What do I hear?” Melicent cried, still more excited.

“Listen, oh best beloved of the best beloved! I love

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Richard; — I loved him for his greatness and his purity; I
loved him with the instinct of girlhood, — I have loved him
with the meditativeness of womanhood. I love you, oh
precious sister of my soul! because you love him. I know
what you feel; I share your sufferings. He, too, suffers. I
have been near his heart; I have heard its lonely anguish;
I have felt its tortured throbs. I love his happiness; and
his happiness is your love; and the happiness of you both
is your mutual reünion. I am his bride, but through you.
My love for him I give to you. Take it into your heart, —
let it be your love! Let it survive in the depth of your
affection! Let it shed its light upon the darkness that surrounds
you! And when, in the rapture of being, you can call
him your own, remember, oh remember, that one, young and
inexperienced, — too susceptible, perhaps too constant, — that
Junia loved him too!”

“How can I support this?” exclaimed Melicent. “In
what heavenly transition do I awake? Art thou a mortal?”

“I am simple Junia,” replied the other; “but hear me;—
I am brided to Richard's and your felicity. I put on this
little array, such as a fond girl's heart might choose; clothing
not my body, but an irrepressible promise of things in
my soul; clothing, it may be, some old, pleasant feelings,
that once wished to be the bride of Richard; clothing, too,
the brief remaining hour of my life for marriage with the
ideal vision which your union with him is to my mind, —
the union of Wealth and Worth, — of Refinement and
Nobleness, — of Richard and Melicent!”

“Dearest Junia!” cried Melicent; “purest of beings!
Let me embrace you, — let me fold to my heart its long-lost
tranquillity!”

“I perish, — I die!” answered Junia. “The voice of the
oriole has been heard. My happiness is complete when

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yours begins. I am called to the spirit land, — let me
bless you and Richard ere I go — ”

Her voice faltered; blood on her lips betrayed the violent
hemorrhage that succeeded. She fainted; and while Melicent
was attempting to support her, an outbursting sob, as
of some one in the chamber, was heard. It was Miss Eyre,
who instantly, but trembling with emotion, advanced, and
assisted in carrying the languid frame to the bed.

Miss Eyre had followed Junia, — followed her with
more than usual concern, and even approached the chamber
of Melicent, where, moved by the impassioned language
within, she opened the door, and beheld Junia at Melicent's
feet, and heard her words.

She was at least awed. Solemn, tender, delicate, she
exerted herself to bring back the spirit that seemed so suddenly
and so affectingly to have vanished.

Opening her eyes, Junia said, “Ah, Plumy Alicia! and
you too, — you to bless the hour, — you to make us all
happy?”

The house was aroused. Madam Dennington, confined
to her room by some illness of the season, could no more
than give directions for the sick one. Miss Eyre summoned
Mrs. Melbourne, who was always kind to the unfortunate,
and who forgot everything else in an occasion like
the present.

Dr. Chassford, the family physician, was called, who,
with other specifics, ordered quietness and rest. His manner
showed, what all felt, that Junia could not live long.

“I am quiet,” she said, a little while afterwards. “I
have unburdened my heart, and I rest.”

But she grew weaker, and could not be moved. “Send
word,” she said, “to Willow Croft, that I cannot return today,
but not to be alarmed for me.”

CHAPTER XLV. THE HEART OF MISS EYRE.

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The immediate excitement of this casualty having subsided,
the Family were left to ponder more serious matters
connected with the visit of Junia. Mrs. Whichcomb and the
council were disposed of, — Clover's villany stood revealed.
What remained, that Richard should not be immediately
summoned, and the reconciliation celebrated? Miss Eyre
remained, broodingly, silently, awfully. She remained
literally with Mrs. Melbourne, who would not suffer her to
leave the house; — she remained mystically in all hearts
and apprehensions. Why should not the Family throw
itself upon its intuitions, and act at once in obedience
thereto? It was not a way it had, — if we except Barbara,
who had such a way, and put on her hat to execute it. But
Roscoe, who was pruning trees in the front yard, prevented
her; — Roscoe, the silent and unsocial one, reputed so queer
and strange. “Plumy Alicia,” said he, “has not spoken.
If Richard is recalled, she must be banished; his exoneration
is her perdition. We must wait a little. There are
things to be explained yet. Who of us can pretend to
fathom all this mystery?” Barbara loved Roscoe and
yielded to him.

Melicent and Junia both felt, and they all felt, what
Roscoe expressed. “God will help us,” said Junia. “Let
us wait on him.” “I can wait, if you can,” responded
Melicent.

[figure description] Page 431.[end figure description]

What would Miss Eyre do? We have said she betrayed
extreme emotion at the sight of Junia and Melicent. What
did she see at that moment? She saw an old, fond love,
intent, not upon the possession but the welfare of the
beloved; she saw hopelessness pleading with aversion in
behalf of neglect; she saw virtue seeking to acquit turpitude
to conscience; disinterestedness launched on destruction
to render deliverance. She saw Junia supplicating Melicent
for Richard; she saw woman's heart yielding heroically to
rival supremacy; she saw a young girl's gushing, undying
affection, sacrificing itself on the altar of another's love.
She beheld cheerfulness where she anticipated moodiness,
constancy where she had prophesied hatred; and was the
witness of a defence from a quarter which to her own mind
boded nothing but scorn and vengeance.

The sight overcame her; its novelty, mystery, pathos,
amazed her; its incantation spun through all her frame.
But while it swept like a wind across the forest of her
sensibilities, we are not prepared to say it upturned a single
root of her purpose.

The next day, being alone with Mrs. Melbourne, she
burst into tears.

“I do not wonder you feel bad,” said her old mistress.
“If I were not more than usually sustained, I should cry too.
What a height of impudence and vulgarity!”

Miss Eyre made no answer.

“Try the camphor-bottle; — oh dear, how wicked is man!
how unfeeling are the lower orders! That Richard would
kill you, if he were left to himself one moment! I have
seen him strike a horse that was all in a foam of sweat. —
Open the window, where you can breathe.” This did not
abate Miss Eyre's distress.

“I do not blame you, Plumy Alicia,” continued her

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comforter. “I cannot; I have it not in my heart to see the least
of God's creatures suffer, except some who deserve it. —
Well, I will not, — I know you are tender on that point.
Don't cry so, dear girl! you shall marry Richard. Lie
on my bed, — smell of this chamomile. If Richard has
wronged you, and you still love him, you shall have him.
I know we cannot help our feelings. When I was young —
oh God forgive me! — There, there; I will never speak
against Richard again.”

Miss Eyre wept herself to sleep, and sank from convulsions
to repose.

Mrs. Melbourne smoothed her hair and dress, and sat
tenderly by her side. “I did not know,” she said within
herself, “she could feel so much. But she shall not be disappointed.
What could have induced that country girl to
undertake such a thing? Why is she sick? Do we not
see God's finger in it? — That Glendar should be rejected,
and that bad man promoted, is impossible.”

When Miss Eyre awoke, it was with a manner apparently
averted from Mrs. Melbourne; so much so that this lady
regarded her with surprise.

“Why don't you speak?” she said.

“I can't to you,” replied Miss Eyre.

“Why not to me? I am your friend. What are you
going to do?” She asked this with consternation, as Miss
Eyre, with hidden determination in her eye, left the bed.

“To see Junia,” answered Miss Eyre.

“She has told her story,” murmured Mrs. Melbourne.

“What if there were some truth in it?” rejoined the
other.

Mrs. Melbourne would have screamed; but she hushed
herself, and said, “Plumy Alicia, how rash! Will you
ruin yourself, and disgrace us all? May she not have

[figure description] Page 433.[end figure description]

deceived? There is nothing too bad for some people to do!
Who sent her here, — who? I wish the truth might be told,—
all the truth, — and I am glad there are a few honest
ears to hear it!”

Miss Eyre disappeared. She went to the bed-side of
Junia.

Junia looked up, with a serene, rill-like smile, and laid
her thin, transparent hand outside the bed, as it were inviting
Miss Eyre's into it.

“Did you love Richard?” said Miss Eyre.

“You know I loved him,” replied Junia.

“And you gave him up?”

“God took him, and gave him to another.”

“I am not religious. Tell Mrs. Melbourne of that.
Had you no hatred to him for leaving you?”

“He never left me; — I only clung to him.”

“In that clinging, Junia, was there not joy, rapture,
life?”

“Alas, dear Plumy Alicia, yes!”

“But you gave it all up, and have helped another one to
cling where you were clinging, and to exult in what was
your bliss?”

“She had a better right than I. Besides, his happiness
was concerned, and her happiness, and the happiness of so
many. And, dear Plumy Alicia, I have never been so happy
as I am now; — I have done no more than my duty, and
what God would have me do. You will not make Richard
unhappy, will you? You will not do anything to distress
his noble spirit, will you? You have been weeping; you
will never weep again when Richard is happy; — you will be
happy too.”

Miss Eyre could not answer; she meditated.

Junia resumed. “I could not go into the next world, —

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and we must all go there, — with the sin of unkindness to
Richard, and Melicent, and all these excellent ones, on my
soul.”

Miss Eyre withdrew to the window, and sat where Melicent
sat and Junia kneeled.

The same day, Miss Rowena did slip away to Willow
Croft, but simply to tell them how Junia was, and to tell
Richard how nobly she had vindicated him. She dared
only allude to Miss Eyre; and Richard, perhaps, wished
her to do no more than that. He had himself a feeling
about Miss Eyre which Miss Rowena could not fathom.

Another night passed in the Family, — a night of thick,
silent darkness, when the clouds seem to be in the streets,
and walking about the houses, — when the windows all
become black mirrors of things in the room, and if the
heart is sad, these images look very gloomy. The whisking
of wind in the trees, or the pattering of rain on the
piazza, would have been a relief. Mrs. Melbourne was very
melancholy, and Miss Eyre very pale.

Junia was a little day-time in her own heart and chamber,—
a pleasant taper of resignation and patience; and she
made Melicent and Barbara, who sat with her, feel hopeful
and cheerful.

The next morning, Miss Eyre sought a private moment
with Melicent. She said, “Neither you nor I can abide
this much longer. I do not speak. Do you wish me to?
Do you wish me to open my mouth? Do you wish to look
through fair lips and beautiful teeth — they say I have
them, — and beyond the smoothness of my tongue, into the
depths of what I am, — into here, — into this, — which
they call a heart?”

“Let me see everything it is in your power to show, that
will be of any use to see,” replied Melicent.

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“Under this roof,” continued Miss Eyre, “that now
accuses me, derived I the elements of my crime. Some of
them, — not all. Here were sown the seeds of the bitter
night-shade you now taste in me. Not you, gentle, great
one; — not Barbara; — not the Governor. Mrs. Melbourne
taught me the essential worthlessness of that large class of
people among whom I was born, and with whom it might be
my fortune to spend my days. Mrs. Melbourne is generous,
humane, tender-hearted. I am under a thousand obligations
to her kindness; but she despises the lower orders, and
she would have me despise, betray, disinherit my own kith
and kin. I was ambitious, — proud, they call it. What is
that? You know not. You were born great. You cannot
step out without stepping into littleness. Then how easy,
how pleasant, to take a few steps in that direction, — merely
passing from Wilton carpets to dusty streets, — and go
home to your own greatness! But for me, born little, to
step into greatness, — how hard, how hazardous! Then to
go home to littleness, — to creep back, after a pleasant
exaltation, into one's mean hovel, — you know not what
that is!

“Then there is love. O burden, unreäcting fatality, organic
sigh, of woman! But whom love? Where my
hearth-stone? Who lie in these arms? You cannot understand
this. You are in a gallery of fine portraits, and can
take any one. I am surrounded by daubs, and must hunt
for what is tolerable. Have I no desire for what is excellent?
Pulsates not every fibre of this woman's frame for
the embrace of purity, elevation, nobleness? I saw Richard, —
I liked him; — I tell you I liked him! He united
the loftiness of the higher classes with the solid virtues of
his own. I sprang towards him, in my heart, wantonly
wildly. His reserve and moderation the rather inflamed

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me. I intrigued, — yes, I was trained to that. What selfishness
of voluptuousness, what shallowness of mediocrity,
what cravings of the hod-clopperhood, have importuned for
me, and sighed at my feet, and cajoled my vanity! I tortured
him. The Redferns tortured me, more than you
know of, — more than I can relate. Virtue, — I am not
virtuous! Is Mrs. Melbourne, who has so perverted my
existence, virtuous? Is Fiddledeeana Redfern, who has so
wounded every womanly sensibility within me, virtuous?
Do not look so upbraidingly at me!”

“I do not upbraid you. I am only deeply concerned in
what you say.”

“Give me your smelling-bottle. I am not going to faint.
I want to carry off my excitement with spirit. You cannot
think of my faults worse than I suffer from them. I abhor
Clover; but he menaced me, — menaced not only my happiness,
but even my life. I should support his cause, he
said, or he would overrun me, — he would destroy me. He
would have plunged me into the depths of Merrywater.
Well if he had! I could not endure Richard's union with
you. Hear the whole, and then do with me as you will. It
rankled here. I could not help it.”

“You mean,” said Melicent, “you did not help it. You
never practised self-control; you had no religious humility.”

“Practised nothing, — had nothing, that you call good.
No, no! Little of that has addressed itself to me. Good
men, — your good men, — do not speak to me; — bad
men are false and selfish with me. My regard for Richard
was the only good thing of my life! I believed he
loved me; at least, I believed I could make him love
me, — that I had made him love me. Others managed for
my approbation, — why should I not for his? Glendar has

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adored my smile, — why should I not fawn on Richard's
heart? You are interested, — you may well be. I come to
the quick of the thing. I have told no untruths about Richard! —
Do not destroy your fan; you may be glad to use
it before I have done. — Have you not learned that nobody
tells lies? They tell truths so that they shall seem a lie,—
that is all. I let untruths be told; — or rather, surrounded
by stupidity and fanaticism, I had only to let the false impressions
of people take their own course. I gave to truth
a little of the rouge, the twinkle, the fine airs, of falsehood,
and I had no further trouble. I knew not precisely the nature
of his visits at the sick chamber of Violet; nor did I
care to know, — it was little to me, any way. Mrs. Whichcomb
believed, or made herself believe, he had other objects
than charity; and she made more than one believe it, too.
The lower orders have their faults and vices. They do not
understand nobleness, or intellectuality, or cultured simplicity
and freedom. They misappreciate you, Melicent, and
your father, and your church, and your minister, and your
whole social circle and position. It is not a month since,
down on the Islands, I heard a man say he hoped the Governor
would come to his last crust, — he did not care how
soon! How easy, then, to pervert a visit to a sick chamber!
I knew Junia loved Richard; and that I did care to know.
I first dreaded, then hated her. And afterwards, so far as
his connection with you was concerned, I thought she would
hate him. Here I was mistaken. Of that, presently.”

“You acquit Richard of the aspersions that have been
thrown upon him?” said Melicent, with some earnestness.

“Do not be impassioned; — that is reserved for me. Junia
disappointed me; she appalled me; she has wrung my heart,—
wrung its animosity, its fire, its intention, all out of it.
She is the first gleam of light in this dark world of affections

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and passions that surrounds me. As Clover says, she has
crushed me! Sorrow, remorse, hurtle pitilessly through this
ruin of my being. Richard is too innocent, — too harmless.
If he had only been guilty, — not that, — if he had
been selfish or forward, — I should have loved him more: —
nay, I should have scorned him! He has his weak points;
and his weak ones are my strong ones, and there I should
have mastered him, but for a something beyond. — What is
that something?”

“Religion, — Conscience, — God.”

“I did not ask to be told of that. I only asked in a
reverie sort of way. Richard relies on the simplicity of
things, and what he supposes to be the goodness of men.
He deceives himself.”

“Are you never deceived?”

“Richard is sorry for me. He knows I am not exempt
from pangs. He feels committed, not to me, but to my misery.
You can break a man's heart, sometimes, by breaking
your own.”

“Angelic Richard! Wicked, wicked Plumy Alicia!”

“Not on purpose, — not altogether with guile. — I was
broken. He has even now to step over my desolation to
reach you.”

Melicent raised her handkerchief to her face.

“You can weep, Melicent. I have wept. I have
drained myself dry, as the stubble after reaping.

“Did Richard have no intention and respect of love
towards me? Could I raise none such? Ah! he said he
detested me! I have been deceived, — I deceived myself.
Junia! Junia! thou wert a woman; I was a —

“Where am I? Whither shall I turn? The world, that
clutched at my story, and, bartering its respect for its envy,

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patronized my cause, and poured its venom on Richard, will
whirl upon me.”

“Is there not such a thing as duty?”

“Junia said so, and you say so; and I suppose it is so.”

“You speak,” said Melicent, “as if there were no goodness.
Is there none in the Church, — none in the Griped
Hand, — none in the little children, — none in every street
of the city, or in a thousand families, and in innumerable
individuals?”

“Yes, there are good, honest men and women among
what are called the lower orders, — young men and young
women, whom I have associated with, and worked with, —
who would not do a wrong thing for the world, — who are
goodness itself, more than you know of. But I must, forsooth,
look down upon them! I must see among them a
lower order of taste and feeling! And, in fact, I must find
amongst many of them an ignorant, indeed, but systematic
depreciation of what is ever and deeply to my eye socially
bright and glorious, the Governor's Family. Who of them
could afford me that sympathy which my heart craved, or
my judgment would select? I must either marry a man
whom I despised, or be the mistress of a man who despised
me. I would do and be neither. A man like Richard, Lumberer
though he be, can marry the Governor's daughter!”

“What if you should marry the Governor's son?” said
Melicent, playfully. “There is Brother Roscoe, the odd
one. He used to like you; he left his books to be with
you; he used to swing you under the elms, and run of
your errands. He is not fond of our society; he attaches
himself to none of the young ladies that visit us. In all
this dreadful affair, I have noticed that he abstained from
reproaching you. I am not certain but you carried away a
portion of his heart.”

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“Are you willing that I should marry him?” asked Miss
Eyre.

“Indeed, I am.”

“Pure, good, magnanimous Melicent, how I thank you,—
how I love you — how I am all vanquished again, —
killed by goodness! Not that I will marry him; I will not,—
never, never! — but that you reveal yourself so, — you
look out so prettily, and so Junia-like!”

“Then you give me Richard, if I give you Roscoe?”
This, also, playfully.

“Richard is all yours, — was ever yours; his fair, large
being, hidden to me, broods over you. I am healed, not by
your promises, but by your goodness. Richard will see no
bruises in me. But to the world I am dead, — I must be as
dead. How can I be obscure enough? How shall I escape
Mrs. Melbourne? Cousin Rowena, and Barbara, and all
of you, must loathe me. I do not ask you to save me.
Junia yielded up all her love for you; — you yield all the
sentiments of your rank for me. What is left for me but
to yield myself to — fate?

“God —”

“I am humbled; — teach me to be pious.”

“And to my discretion.”

“I am a child; — lead me where you will.”

“I can take care of Mrs. Melbourne, and our family can
take care of itself, and Providence will take care of the
world.”

CHAPTER XLVI. THE SUN BREAKS OUT.

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Richard walked down St. Agnes-street, with a tranquil,
lydian step. At the gate of the Governor's, he saw Melicent
standing in the vine-wreathed piazza, where she had
come out to wait for him. She was dressed in her peculiar
blue, which she remembered Richard liked; and she was a
pure blue thought already, in Richard's imagination, and
looked as if her Guardian Angel had bathed her in the
azure of the sky, and the azure of Richard's feelings, and
placed her there on purpose to meet her old and good
beloved.

She received him with an affectionate smile, — a smile
that bared her teeth beautifully, but pensively, as if joy
still swam in the remembrance of a long sorrow; — a smile
that, descending, clove asunder her arms, and parted the
Doubt and the Fear that had hung over her being, and
turned them into silvery clouds, on the right hand and the
left, through which Richard passed to the brightness of her
spirit.

CHAPTER XLVII. ORANGE-BLOSSOMS.

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The Wedding Eve of Richard and Melicent was a splendid
one, — splendid in its feelings, in its guests, in its
appointments. All the friends of Richard and all the
friends of Melicent were there, and this was a multitude.
The Father and Mother of Richard were there, and his
early spiritual and intellectual guides, Pastor Harold and
Teacher Willwell. Through an illuminated archway of
trees, and an illuminated portal, the guests swept to bright
chambers, — bright as the day-spring of joy that had arisen
on the house. The brightness flowed down and culminated
in the ample drawing-room, — raying from astrals and waxlights,
from minstrel hearts and evening-star eyes, from
fragrant flowers and glorified dresses, and, more than all,
from the deep, central fires of holy, fervent felicitation.

Beneath one of the antique arches that garnished the
space on either side of the chimney stood Miss Eyre and
Chassford. Parson Smith was not sorry to be called to
marry Richard and Melicent, and it is said clergymen
generally are happy at weddings, and fond of wedding-cake.
If there was one person in the room not fully penetrated with
the spirit of the occasion, it was Mrs. Melbourne. She had
the habit of saying a wedding was like a funeral; and, as if
to actualize the sentiment, she came out in black.

There entered, to make the vow and receive the convenant
which the State ordains and the Church supports, — which
in all ages has been agreeable to the reason and religion

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of mankind, — Richard and Melicent, with their train of
attendants.

The service was simple and affecting, brief and full, edifying
and hopeful. Before the benediction, an appropriate
hymn was sung, led by Mangil, chorister in the Church of
the Redemption. There was a movement as of a flocking
to kiss the bride, when Junia entered the room. The
crowd held back; all eyes were suspended on her, while as
a vision she passed through. She approached the altarplace,
and kissed Melicent. Taking from her breast the
golden cross of Richard, she hung it on Melicent's neck.
She tenderly kissed Richard; it was her first and her last
kiss. She was supported out of the room, and was seen no
more alive on the earth.

The returning and irresistible wave of joy brought the
whole room about the Bride and Groom, and kisses and congratulations
fell upon them, like bouquets at the feet of
Jenny Lind; — we cannot keep that woman out of our mind,
though we have never seen or heard her, and never expect
to do so; — not as if the spot Junia's lips had touched was
holy ground, where no one might tread, but as if her coming
in had been a ray of the sunshine of God on pleasant
fields, where old men and children, young men and maidens,
might freely disport. Cake and wine; — and, lest some
feral reader shall find here a bone to pick with us, we will
tell the whole truth, — it was Cousin Rowena's raspberry
wine; — cake and wine were brought in, and quickly and
pleasantly disposed of. Then followed the Bride Cake; the
May Queen, in this procession of good things, mounted on a
silver basket, and daintily adorned with flowers and shrubbery.
This, appropriated to the unmarried, contained a
diamond ring, with the significance that whoever got the
ring would be married first. Bachelors and maidens were

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instantly as wounded birds. Cousin Rowena bit her lip.
She made the cake, and knew where the ring lay, and
superintended the distribution. Barbara got the ring.

This was hardly fair, as she belonged to the house; but
there remained only one piece, and there could be no collusion
about that; and it was to Cousin's mind as if Providence
directed the matter, and she said, slyly, “Take it,
take it;” so the talismanic bauble fell into the hands of
Barbara.