The Wife of his Youth | Page 8

make me wait too long
for that. Why, just think of it! I have known you for six months."
"That is an extremely long time," said Clara, as they sat down side by
side.

"It has been an age," he rejoined. "For a fortnight of it, too, which
seems longer than all the rest, I have been waiting for my answer. I am
turning gray under the suspense. Seriously, Clara dear, what shall it be?
or rather, when shall it be? for to the other question there is but one
answer possible."
He looked into her eyes, which slowly filled with tears. She repulsed
him gently as he bent over to kiss them away.
"You know I love you, John, and why I do not say what you wish. You
must give me a little more time to make up my mind before I can
consent to burden you with a nameless wife, one who does not know
who her mother was"----
"She was a good woman, and beautiful, if you are at all like her."
"Or her father"----
"He was a gentleman and a scholar, if you inherited from him your
mind or your manners."
"It is good of you to say that, and I try to believe it. But it is a serious
matter; it is a dreadful thing to have no name."
"You are known by a worthy one, which was freely given you, and is
legally yours."
"I know--and I am grateful for it. After all, though, it is not my real
name; and since I have learned that it was not, it seems like a
garment--something external, accessory, and not a part of myself. It
does not mean what one's own name would signify."
"Take mine, Clara, and make it yours; I lay it at your feet. Some
honored men have borne it."
"Ah yes, and that is what makes my position the harder. Your
great-grandfather was governor of Connecticut."
"I have heard my mother say so."

"And one of your ancestors came over in the Mayflower."
"In some capacity--I have never been quite clear whether as ship's cook
or before the mast."
"Now you are insincere, John; but you cannot deceive me. You never
spoke in that way about your ancestors until you learned that I had
none. I know you are proud of them, and that the memory of the
governor and the judge and the Harvard professor and the Mayflower
pilgrim makes you strive to excel, in order to prove yourself worthy of
them."
"It did until I met you, Clara. Now the one inspiration of my life is the
hope to make you mine."
"And your profession?"
"It will furnish me the means to take you out of this; you are not fit for
toil."
"And your book--your treatise that is to make you famous?"
"I have worked twice as hard on it and accomplished twice as much
since I have hoped that you might share my success."
"Oh! if I but knew the truth!" she sighed, "or could find it out! I realize
that I am absurd, that I ought to be happy. I love my parents--my
foster-parents--dearly. I owe them everything. Mother--poor, dear
mother!--could not have loved me better or cared for me more
faithfully had I been her own child. Yet--I am ashamed to say it--I
always felt that I was not like them, that there was a subtle difference
between us. They were contented in prosperity, resigned in misfortune;
I was ever restless, and filled with vague ambitions. They were good,
but dull. They loved me, but they never said so. I feel that there is
warmer, richer blood coursing in my veins than the placid stream that
crept through theirs."
"There will never be any such people to me as they were," said her

lover, "for they took you and brought you up for me."
"Sometimes," she went on dreamily, "I feel sure that I am of good
family, and the blood of my ancestors seems to call to me in clear and
certain tones. Then again when my mood changes, I am all at sea--I feel
that even if I had but simply to turn my hand to learn who I am and
whence I came, I should shrink from taking the step, for fear that what I
might learn would leave me forever unhappy."
"Dearest," he said, taking her in his arms, while from the hall and down
the corridor came the softened strains of music, "put aside these
unwholesome fancies. Your past is shrouded in mystery. Take my
name, as you have taken my love, and I 'll make your future so happy
that you won't have time to think of the past. What are a lot of musty,
mouldy old grandfathers, compared with life and