Dawn of the Morning. Grace Livingston Hill
or the woods, where she might sit quietly and look up into the blue sky, listening to the music of the winds and the birds or the sad chirp of a cricket, taking a little grasshopper into her confidence, talking to a friendly squirrel on the maple bough overhead—here was where she really lived. On the walls of her memory were hung strange, sad pictures of the past. Always on such occasions the mother all in white, with starry eyes, hovered over her, and seemed to listen to the wild longing that beat in her young heart, and to pour a benediction upon her.
She could not think of her father except sadly or bitterly, and so as much as possible she put him out of her thoughts. By degrees, as she came to see on his annual visits how old and careworn he was grown, how haunted and haggard were his eyes, she grew to pity him, but never to love, for her mother had been her idol, and he had killed her mother. That the girl could not forget, though as she grew older she felt with a kind of spiritual instinct that she must forgive. She felt it was his own blindness and stupidity that had done it, and that he was suffering some measure of punishment for his deed. She never actually put these thoughts before her in so many words. They were rather a sort of growing undertone of consciousness in her, as her mental and spiritual faculties developed.
In one year more she would be through with the school course. For some time she had been dreading the thought, and wondering what would come to her next? If she might go somewhere and "teach school,"—but she felt certain her father would never allow that. He was proud and held ideas about woman's sphere. Though she could scarcely be said to know him well, still she felt without asking that he would never consent. Sometimes she even entertained vague thoughts of running away when she should be through school, for the idea of dwelling under her father's roof again, under control of the woman who had usurped her mother's place, she could not abide.
It was therefore with trepidation that she received a message in the school-room one morning, bidding her come to the parlor to meet her father. The fair face flushed and the brow darkened with trouble. It was not the usual time for her father's annual visit. Did it mean that he was going to take her away from the school? Her young heart beat to the old tune of the friendly clock at home as she went to answer the summons: "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!"
But in the square, plain parlor, with its hair-cloth furniture, its gray paper window-shades, and its neutral-tinted ingrain carpet, there sat two men with Friend Ruth, instead of one.
Her father looked older than ever before. His hair was silvering about the edges, though he was still what would have been called a young man. The stranger was younger, yet with an old look about his eyes, as if they had been living longer than the rest of his face.
Dawn paused in the doorway and looked from one to the other. She had put up her hand as she reached the door, and drawn from her head the net which held her beautiful curls in leash. They fell about her lovely face in the fashion of the day. They were grown long and thick, but still kept their baby softness and fineness of texture. She made a charming picture standing thus with the door-latch in her hand, hesitating almost shyly, though she was not unduly shy. Even in her Quaker garb, with the sheer folds of the snowy kerchief about her neck, she looked an unusually beautiful girl. The young stranger saw and took notice as he rose to receive the impersonal introduction that her father gave.
The girl looked at them both gravely, with an alert watchfulness. Of the stare of open admiration with which the stranger regarded her, she seemed not even to be aware, though Friend Ruth noticed it with disapproval.
Dawn took the chair to which Friend Ruth motioned her, at some distance from the young man, and sat demurely waiting, her eyes wide with apprehension. Her father asked about her conduct and standing in the school, but no flush of embarrassment came to the face of the watching girl, though Friend Ruth gave unwonted praise of the past year's work. At another time it would have astonished and pleased her, but now she felt it was a mere preliminary to the real object of her father's visit.
As soon as there came a break in the conversation, the stranger took a part, admiring the location of the school, and saying he would be glad if he might look about the place, as he had a friend who wished to send his daughter away to school somewhere, and it would be a pleasure to be able to speak in detail of this delightful spot. Was there a view of the Hudson from this point? Indeed! Perhaps the young lady would be so kind as to show it to him?
Friend Ruth hesitated, but the father waved a command to his daughter. Frowning, she arose to obey. She felt the whole thing was a subterfuge to get her from the room while the real object of her father's unexpected visit was divulged.
She led the way through the wide hall, out to the pillared veranda, and down the sloping lawn to the bluff which overlooked the river, where plied a steamer on its silver course. Apathetically she pointed out the places of interest. She scarcely heard her companion's eager attempts at conversation. He noted the absent look in her dark eyes.
"You do not like it here?" he asked, letting his tone become gentle, in coaxing confidence.
"Oh, yes," she answered quickly, with a flit of trouble across her face. "At least, I think I do. I do not care to go away."
"Not to your beautiful home?" he asked insinuatingly. "And your mother?" he added, his eyes narrowing to observe her expression more closely.
"She is not my mother," answered the girl coldly, and became at once reserved, as if she were sorry for having spoken so plainly.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I did not know," murmured the stranger, making mental note of her change of expression.
Suddenly her eyes flashed wide upon him, and she dashed a question out with a way that compelled an answer:
"Has my father come to take me home, do you know?"
"Oh, no, not at all," answered the young man suavely. He was delighted to have found this key to her thoughts. It led just where he desired. "We are merely taking a business trip together, and your father stopped off to see how things were going with you. I am sure I am delighted that he did, for it has given me great pleasure to meet you."
"Why?" asked the girl, lifting relieved eyes to his face in mild astonishment.
He gave a half-embarrassed laugh at this frank way of meeting him.
"Now, surely, you do not need to ask me that," he said, looking down at her meaningly, his eyes gazing into the innocent ones in open and intimate admiration. "You must know how beautiful you are!"
With a startled expression, she searched his face, and then, not finding it pleasant, turned away with a look resembling her father in its sternness.
"I don't think that is a nice way for a man to talk to a girl," she said in a displeased tone. "I am too big to be spoken to in that way. I am past sixteen, and shall be done school next year."
He dropped the offending manner at once, and begged her pardon, pleading that her father had talked of her as a child. He asked also that she would let him be her friend, for he felt that they would be congenial, and all the more that she was growing into womanhood.
Her gravity did not relax, however, and her eyes searched his face suspiciously.
"I think we would better go into the house," she said soberly. "Friend Ruth will not like my staying out so long, and I must see my father again."
"But will you be my friend?" he insisted, as they turned their steps toward the house.
"How could we be friends? You are not in the school, and I never go away. Besides, I don't see what would be the use."
"Don't you like me at all?" he asked, putting on the tone which had turned many a girl's head.
"Why, I don't know you even a little bit. How could I like you? Besides, why should I?" answered Dawn frankly.
"You are deliriously plain-spoken."
She caught her lip between her teeth in a vexed way. Why would he persist in talking to her as if she were a child?
"There, now I have vexed you again," he said, pretending to be much dismayed, "but indeed you misunderstand me. I do not look upon you as a child at all. Many a girl