charmed and elevated his mind. New worlds rising out of chaos opened to his view, new perceptions of beauty, new aspirations after what was great and good, a disgust for all that was low, coarse, and vicious, rose up within him; the slumbering depths of his strong soul had been stirred by the breath of love, and his excited faculties eagerly grasped at the wide range of ideas and profuse variety of imagery suddenly presented to him. Again and again he read the passages that most deeply interested him, and each time with a truer appreciation of their grandeur and beauty, and at the same time a clearer consciousness of his own deficiencies grew within him, and a keener perception of his immeasurable inferiority to her, who was in his eyes the personification of all that was most beautiful, pure, and good. The brighter, the fairer, the more gifted she appeared to him, the more he exaggerated his own rudeness and want of culture, and the farther did all hope of ever winning the right to tell his love recede beyond his sight. Yet with all this he felt a proud conviction that he had both the power and the will to think truly and act nobly, and that prophetic burning impulse which urges the intense will onwards by whispering of the might within and promises of eventual reward, stirred strongly in his breast. Hitherto he had only had the vague promptings of his own struggling energies to excite him, but now an irresistible force had thoroughly aroused his dormant faculties; now a deep, steadfast passion had taken possession of him, infusing a new life and soul into his being, and giving him not only the wish and determination to raise himself to the sphere of that fair planet, which had shed such pure and holy radiance on his path, but the power to do it. In the first place he resolved to improve himself as far am he could while Helen was confined to her room, that he might be somewhat better fitted for her society when they met again. He had given up his house to Helen and Mrs. Wendell, when Helen was taken ill, and he now occupied a shanty at a little distance, which had been formerly inhabited by O’Brien. It was still in the state in which the schoolmaster had left it, but it contained nothing of the slightest value, except a couple of shelves filled with books, which Keefe would not now have exchanged for their weight in gold. Some were Greek and Latin classics, a good many were French works, but there were a few volumes in English. A history of the Greek mythology satisfied the curiosity Milton’s innumerable allusions to the beautiful divinities of the cloud-capped Olympus had created; Bacon’s Essays and Goldsmith’s works were also there, others not worth mentioning; but to Keefe their riches seemed inexhaustible.
It is not the number of books read, but the exercise they give to the intellect, the ideas they impart, the thoughts they awaken, that develope and nourish the mind; and his was of that rare and vigorous order whose virtues “grew like the strawberry under the nettle,” and its powers
“Like the summer grass,
Fastest by night.”
Strengthened by the free and energetic life he had led, it seized with avidity the aliment best fitted to ripen and unfold the innate fine qualities it possessed. The change a few weeks of hard study effected in Keefe might almost have seemed miraculous to any one ignorant of the progress a powerful mind can make under the influence of a strong stimulus and a determined will. His face, always open and intelligent, now beamed with expression; his air had gained something of grace and refinement, without losing its frank self-reliance and manliness; his voice had been always clear and well toned; his language was no longer deformed by slang phrases, or oaths, and his manner had grown more gentle and less abrupt. The unwrought gold of his nature was rapidly refining and brightening beneath the skilful touch of that matchless artist, Love.
CHAPTER XVII.
Great was Helen’s delight when, for the first time after her illness, she crept to the window, leaning on the kind arm which had so tenderly ministered to her wants during her long illness, and looked on the fair face of Nature, so long hidden from her eyes, and now resplendent in the glory of summer. The flush of roses before the house, unexhausted by the daily bouquets which Keefe had furnished to brighten and perfume her chamber; the blue cloudless heaven; the broad mirrorllike lake; the glowing sunlight spread over all, seemed to her eyes a scene of enchanted beauty, and all past sorrow was for the moment forgotten in the vivid enjoyment with which she felt her renovated life. The next day she was able to see Keefe; but Mrs. Wendell, before she admitted him, made him promise that he would only stay a few minutes, fearing that his presence would awaken in Helen memories too painful and agitating for her weak state to bear. His heart throbbed joyously as he followed Mrs. Wendell into the room, but it stood still with the shock Helen’s pale, wasted, worn looks inflicted on him. She sat in a rocking-chair by the window, wrapped in a large woollen shawl, a little lace cap which her good nurse had made for her, partly covering her hair, which had been cut short during her illness, but still hung in soft curls from her temples, its glossy blackness contrasting not more with the snowy lace, than with the pale check it shaded. Weak and wan she looked, but serene, smiling, hopeful, and pure as an angel,
“Freed from dying flesh and dull mortality.”
But Keefe could not at first believe in her convalescence; the dimmed lustre of her large dark eyes, her thin hand, and hollow cheek, seemed to deny its reality, and his heart sank as he looked at her.
She saw his emotion, and when her eye met his wistful, anxious glance, a beam of its old brightness kindled in it, and her cheek flushed.
“I look very ill, I suppose,” she said, “but 1 know I am getting well, so you must not be frightened, and think it is a ghost you have come to see, instead of a sick girl.”
The touch of her wasted hand, the low music of her voice, drew forth Keefe’s heart, as if it had been a mother’s yearning over her pining babe.
