At this time many humanizing emotions filled the soul of Hiram Meeker. He could not for the moment resist the genuine a spirit as that of Sarah Burns shed even over _his_ nature.
'Well--well--she is a glorious creation; and--she--loves--me.'
He stopped; his pulse beat quick; he was very near the corner where they had met when Sarah failed to recognize him.
'She would not cut me now--not quite,' he added, in the old tone.
Did she love him? My heart aches when I ask the question.
Miss Burns stood for several minutes on the piazza after Hiram went away. Presently her father came up.
'Why, my daughter, are you here? Has Meeker left? It is early yet.'
'Yes, he went some little time ago. I got the whole story out of him; and when he finished he ran off, because I made him talk so much, I fear.'
Mr. Burns observed that his daughter was somewhat excited; but there was good reason, and he did not feel in any mood for scrutiny.
For perhaps the first time in her life, however, _she_ felt conscious of something like _heart vacancy_--of some void her father's presence did not fill. This made her very unhappy. She strove to conceal it, and probably succeeded.
For the first time in her life, her father's kiss did not soothe, comfort, and satisfy her.
As soon as Joel Burns had finished his devotions (his daughter and he knelt always, morning and evening, side by side, and sent up their joint supplications to the Almighty), Sarah hastened to her room. She slept little that night; but when she rose in the morning, after having breathed forth her prayers to God, in whom she so implicitly put her trust, she felt composed and happy, and ready to welcome her father and receive his usual caress.
I have no design to occupy too much of this narrative with the present subject. I am writing the history of Hiram Meeker--not of Sarah Burns. And Hiram's 'little affair' with Sarah, as he used to call it, was scarcely an episode in his life.
The reader can easily understand how quietly, and with a manner both fascinating and insinuating, Hiram installed himself absolutely in the affections of Sarah Burns.
Mark you, Sarah was not a girl to be treated like Mary Jessup, or the Hawkinses, or many others with whom Hiram was or had been a favorite. Hiram knew this magnetically, and he undertook no false moves--assumed no petty freedoms; but he knew how to make such a true-hearted girl love him, and he succeeded.