Pretty Madcap Dorothy Part 10

They all saw Dorothy, the village favorite, flying toward them, and the great throng parted to make way for her. Then the sport of the evening went on with renewed vigor.

"Pile on the barrels!" cried one enthusiastic fellow. "Whether the election is going Democratic or Republican, let's all give three cheers for the incoming governor!" and a loud huzza that made the old town ring broke from a couple of hundred throats, but mingled with it sounded a wild cry of mortal terror in Dorothy's agonizing voice.

"Oh, my G.o.d! my eyes--my eyes! the sparks--the sparks have flown into them! They are burning! Oh, G.o.d!"

And with that agonizing cry she fell backward in a dead faint in the midst of the dazed crowd.

In an instant the greatest confusion prevailed, and the shouts of laughter were turned to sobs of wailing.

Kind hands quickly raised her and bore her to the house. We will pa.s.s gently, dear reader, over the two weeks that followed, for Gray Gables was buried in the deepest sorrow.

One of the most pitiful calamities that ever could have befallen a human being had happened to beautiful, hapless Madcap Dorothy. Poor child! she was blind!

Never again would she see the light of the golden suns.h.i.+ne--never again see the green, waving gra.s.s and the budding flowerets--never see the blue sky, with its fleecy clouds, or the heavens at night blazing with the soft, pale light of the twinkling stars--never again look upon a human face. But while her life lasted she would grope through a world of darkness--blind!

The shock had been terrible to both Mrs. Kemp and Harry Kendal, and oh!

in her pitiful condition how she clung to them!

"You will not throw me off now because I am blind, Harry?" she wailed, laying her head against his bosom and weeping as she had never before wept in all her young life.

"No!" he said, huskily; and that promise rea.s.sured her.

She clasped her white arms around his neck and clung to him in the abandonment of her pitiful woe.

She was wild and willful Madcap Dorothy no longer.

During the first days of her trial friends flocked to see her, but as they grew used to the situation they dropped off, and she was left with only the old housekeeper, and her lover, and the servants of Gray Gables for her companions.

At first she grieved over the terrible calamity with all the bitterness of her soul, then by degrees she became reconciled to it.

But the one great anxiety of her life was in regard to her lover. He had promised to love her still and be true to her; but would he--would he?

The very thought alarmed her soul and became the one terror of her life.

The blind are always acute in other senses.

She felt intuitively, as the days wore on, that he was growing cold toward her. It was pitiful to see her grasp the hands of the little maid that had been engaged to take care of her, and hear her beg her to dress her prettily, and to see that every curl was in place, and the lace at her throat and sleeves fresh and white.

"Oh, Katy, do I look very horrible?" she would whisper, in a breath of intense agony, over and over again a hundred times during the day. "Are there not cruel scars on my face? Oh, G.o.d! the terrible fire burned my eyes to their sockets--dry. Surely I must be a thing so horrible to the sight, that people who see me turn away quickly, suppressing a cry on their lips. Is it not so?"

"Oh, no, miss! Believe me, there is not a scar on your pretty face. Your cheeks have lost a little of their bloom, that is all, and the white lids gently cover your poor eyes, and the long lashes sweep your cheeks.

You look as though you were walking in your sleep."

"But tell me, Katy," sobbed Dorothy, "do you think Harry does--do you think Harry could love me as well as before?"

"And why not, miss?" returned the little maid. "Surely, with your affliction, he should love you doubly more than he ever did before. You needn't fear about my not dressing you in your prettiest, Miss Dorothy.

Sure, I'm always making little bows and fancy things for your dresses, and twining the loveliest of flowers in your pretty golden hair!"

Dorothy would smile faintly, piteously, and sigh ever so gently.

Oh, G.o.d! the pity of groping around those rooms day in and day out! What mattered it if she sat by the open window, as she had been wont to do?

She could not see her lover strolling under the maple-trees, even though she heard his voice and knew he was there.

She would look upon his darkly handsome face never again in this world; and at times Dorothy's soul grew so bitter over her terrible misfortune that she wished she could die. As for Harry Kendal, after the first shock of intense pity over Dorothy's unhappy fate was past, he grew morose and taciturn.

It was bad enough to wed a maiden whom he did not love with all his heart and soul--such as he had heard it expressed in the burning, eloquent words of authors and poets--but to go through life with a blind woman at his side! The very thought made his soul shudder and grow sick within him.

He dared not make any attempt to break their engagement just then, for public sentiment was strongly with the girl; but the chains that bound him to her began to grow very heavy.

Surely she ought not wish to hold him in thraldom now. It was irksome for him to go where she was, to pa.s.sively receive her caresses as well as attempt to stay her burning tears, and to be obliged to a.s.sure her over and over again, with every breath, that he would be sure to be true to her.

Alas! what a slender thread of circ.u.mstances in this world changes our fate for weal or for woe!

Ever since the accident had happened, and the doctors had all p.r.o.nounced the terrible decree that poor Dorothy would go through life totally blind, the poor old housekeeper had been maturing a plan in her head which she thought would be a world of comfort to the poor girl.

Mrs. Kemp had a niece whom she had kept at boarding-school all the girl's life, for she was an orphan, and she said to herself: "How grand a plan it would be to bring the girl to Gray Gables to be a companion to Dorothy until she marries!"

Her niece was a bright, gay creature, and would be just the one to cheer Dorothy up.

Mrs. Kemp concluded to put this plan into execution at once, as there was no one to say nay in regard to it, and she wrote to her niece to come on without delay, little dreaming that this one action would prove the curse of three lives--aye, the bitterest curse that ever wrung a human heart, and that heart poor, hapless Dorothy's.

Ah, me! how often in this world that which we mean for the greatest good turns out the source of the cruelest woe.

Dorothy heard of the plan, and agreed to it eagerly.

"Oh, thank you--thank you for the happy thought, Mrs. Kemp!" she cried; "for I am lonely--so pitifully lonely. Yes, I would give the world for a girl of my own age to be a companion to me until--until I marry Harry."

Kendal received the intelligence with a look of interest in his eyes.

"When does your niece come, Mrs. Kemp?" he inquired.

"I expect Iris to come to-morrow," she replied. And on the following afternoon Iris Vincent arrived.

The carriage met her at the depot. Harry went for her himself. Dorothy stood at the window, with Katy, her faithful little maid, awaiting Iris'

coming with the greatest impatience.

At last the carriage stopped before the arched gateway, and she heard the sound of voices, then a peal of light, girlish laughter ringing out above all the rest.

"Has she come?" whispered Dorothy.

"Yes, miss," murmured the little maid, in a low voice.

"What is she like?" questioned Dorothy, eagerly.

Faithful little Katy looked out of the window, then at Dorothy, a sudden lump rising in her throat and a great fear at her heart.

She dared not tell her that the strange young girl was as beautiful as a poet's dream--slim as a young willow, dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, and, worse still--oh, a thousand times worse!--she was bringing all her charms to bear upon handsome Harry Kendal, who was walking up the graveled walk with her.

"Why don't you answer me?" cried Dorothy, impatiently.