A Forgotten Hero | Page 9

of the matter as much as possible, and regarded it as more of an encumbrance than anything else.
"It is a very sad tale, Clarice," answered Heliet, in a low tone. "He loves her, and would cherish her dearly if she would let him. But there is not any love in her. When she was a young maid, almost a child, she set her heart on being a nun, and I think she has never forgiven her baron for being the innocent means of preventing her. I scarcely know which of them is the more to be pitied."
"Oh, he, surely!" exclaimed Clarice.
"Nay, I am not so sure. God help those who are unloved! but, far more, God help those who cannot love! I think she deserves the more compassion of the two."
"May be," answered Clarice, slowly--her thoughts were running so fast that her words came with hesitation. "But what shouldst thou say to one that had outlived a sorrowful love, and now thought it a happy chance that it had turned out contrary thereto?"
"It would depend upon how she had outlived it," responded Heliet, gravely.
"I heard one say, not many days gone," remarked Clarice--not meaning to let Heliet know from whom she had heard it--"that when she was young she loved a squire of her father, which did let her from wedding with him; and that now she was right thankful it so were, for he was killed on the field, and left never a plack behind him, and she was far better off, being now wed unto a gentleman of wealth and substance. What shouldst thou say to that?"
"If it were one of any kin to thee I would as lief say nothing to it," was Heliet's rather dry rejoinder.
"Nay, heed not that; I would fain know."
"Then I think the squire may have loved her, but so did she never him."
"In good sooth," said Clarice, "she told me she slept many a night on a wet pillow."
"So have I seen a child that had broken his toy," replied Heliet, smiling.
Clarice saw pretty plainly that Heliet thought such a state of things was not love at all.
"But how else can love be outlived?" she said.
"Love cannot. But sorrow may be."
"Some folks say love and sorrow be nigh the same."
"Nay, 'tis sin and sorrow that be nigh the same. All selfishness is sin, and very much of what men do commonly call love is but pure selfishness."
"Well, I never loved none yet," remarked Clarice.
"God have mercy on thee!" answered Heliet.
"Wherefore?" demanded Clarice, in surprise.
"Because," said Heliet, softly, "`he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is charity.'"
"Art thou destined for the cloister?" asked Clarice.
Only priests, monks, and nuns, in her eyes, had any business to talk religiously, or might reasonably be expected to do so.
"I am destined to fulfil that which is God's will for me," was Heliet's simple reply. "Whether that will be the cloister or no I have not yet learned."
Clarice cogitated upon this reply while she ate stewed apples.
"Thou hast an odd name," she said, after a pause.
"What, Heliet?" asked its bearer, with a smile. "It is taken from the name of the holy prophet Elye, [Elijah] of old time."
"Is it? But I mean the other."
"Ah, I love it not," said Heliet.
"No, it is very queer," replied Clarice, with an apologetic blush, "very odd--Underdone!"
"Oh, but that is not my name," answered Heliet, quickly, with a little laugh; "but it is quite as bad. It is Pride."
Clarice fancied she had heard the name before, but she could not remember where.
"But why is it bad?" said she. "Then I reckon Mistress Underdone hath been twice wed?"
"She hath," said Heliet, answering the last question first, as people often do, "and my father was her first husband. Why is pride evil? Surely thou knowest that."
"Oh, I know it is one of the seven deadly sins, of course," responded Clarice, quickly; "still it is very necessary and noble."
Heliet's smile expressed a mixture of feelings. Clarice was not the first person who has held one axiom theoretically, but has practically behaved according to another.
"The Lord saith that He hates pride," said the lame girl, softly. "How, then, can it be necessary, not to say noble?"
"Oh, but--" Clarice went no further.
"But He did not mean what He said?"
"Oh, yes, of course!" said Clarice. "But--"
"Better drop the but," said Heliet, quaintly. "And Father Bevis is about to say grace."
The Dominican friar rose and returned thanks for the repast, and the company broke up, the Earl and Countess, with their guests, leaving the hall by the upper door, while the household retired by the lower.
The preparations for sleep were almost as primitive as those for meals. Exalted persons, such as the Earl and Countess, slept in handsome bedsteads, of the tent form, hung with silk curtains, and