Chapter XXVII

ECHOING FOOTSTEPS

A

wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that

corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the

golden thread which bound her husband, and her father,

and herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of

quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house on the tranquilly resounding

corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years.

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy

young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and

her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in

the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that

stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubtshopes,

of a love as yet unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon

earth, to enjoy that new delightdivided her breast. Among the

echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own

early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would be left so

desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her

eyes, and broke like waves.

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then,

among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet

and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound

as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always

hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny

with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in

her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in His

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arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her.

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all

together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the

tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie

heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing

sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous among

them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of

string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whipcorrected,

snorting and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in

the garden!

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they

were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay

in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he

said, with a radiant smile, “Dear papa and mamma, I am very

sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am

called, and I must go!” those were not tears all of agony that

wetted his young mother’s cheek as the spirit departed from her

embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid

them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father, blessed words!

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the

other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them

that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little