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She could not say, "burned." But Mr. Hewland answered in one word, "Gone." That word answered so many questions on which life and love hung, that fearful night! Mr. Hewland was wet and cold. He went up to his room and changed his clothing. When the daylight, pale and scared, was creeping in, he came down again. "Would you not like to go down and see?" he said to Bel. "Can I?" "Yes.
On her part, Bel Bree got a glimpse, she knew not how, of a world above and beyond her own; a world of beauty, of power, of reach and elevation, in which people like Morris Hewland dwelt.
But she liked to see something in the basket; she was always going to be "well enough to-morrow." When the work had to be returned, Bel hurried, and did the button-holes of an evening. Mr. Hewland brought grapes and oranges and flowers to Miss Bree.
Through the month of August, while work was slack, and the Hewland family was away travelling, and other lodgers' rooms were vacated, the Brees had been more at home, and Morris Hewland had been more in his rooms above, than had been usual at most times. The music mistress had taken a vacation, and gone into the country; only old Mr.
There was a pure, gentle quiet in her face; she had something herself to say. He saw it, and went back. He colored, as he gave her his hand. Her face was pale. "Come in a moment, Mr. Hewland," said the simple, girlish, voice. He followed her in. "You asked me questions last night, and I did not know how to answer them. I want to ask you one question, now."
Because, you see, she was a woman; and she had but been a woman the longer, and her woman's heart grown tenderer and shyer, in its unlived life, that she was four and fifty, and not eighteen. There are three times eighteen in four and fifty. "O, Mr. Sparrow isn't any good!" cried Bel, impetuously. "If you wouldn't mind seeing whether Mr. Hewland is up-stairs?"
People brought up in the country, where neighbors take care of each other, and where every symptom is talked over, and the history of every fatal disorder turns into a tradition, learn about sickness and the meanings of it; on its ghastly and ominous side, at any rate. Mr. Hewland came back and brought two candles, which he had with difficulty procured from a hotel.
There was something holy in the spirit with which she thus realized her possession of maidenly beauty; her gift of mental charm and fitness even; it was the countersign by which she entered into this realm of which Morris Hewland had the freedom; it belonged to her also, she to it; she had received her first recognition.
Few city beauties could bear such morning light as that. Nothing but the morning in the face can meet it. Morris Hewland lifted his hat, and bowed toward the young girl, silently. Then he passed on, up to his room. Bel heard his step, back and forth, overhead. The tuberoses were put into a clear, plain tumbler.
All the comfort all the meaning of it was gone. They were all kind to her; Miss Smalley sat with her evenings, till Bel wished she would have the wiser kindness to go away and let her be miserable, just a little while. Morris Hewland knocked at the door one afternoon when the music-mistress was out, giving her lessons.
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