Originally published: 1897
Genres: Romance
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69071
Chapters: 42
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
CUPID IN THE RAIN
“Love! It began with a glance,
Grew with the growing flowers,
Smiled in a dreamful trance,
Recked not the passage of hours.
“Grief! It began with a word,
Grew with the winds that raved,
A prayer for pardon unheard,
Pardon in turn uncraved.
The bridge so easy to sever,
The stream so swift to be free,
Till the brook became a river,
And the river became a sea.
“Life! It began with a sigh,
Grew with the leaves that are dead,
Its pleasures with wings to fly,
Its sorrows with wings of lead.”
Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair!
“It is better not to know,” agree both the poets and sages.
Beautiful Cinthia Dawn did not think of that as she drummed upon the window pane that rainy autumn day, exclaiming rebelliously:
“I wish something would happen to break up the dreadful monotony of my life.”
Widow Flint, who was her aunt and guardian, and as crabbed and crusty as her name, looked at her with dismay, and retorted:
“Some people don’t know when they’re well off. You have enough to eat, to drink, and to wear, and a good home. What more do you want?”
The girl looked at the dingy sitting room, her own shabby gray gown, then out at the dismal landscape, blurred by the rain and low-hanging clouds, with something like frank contempt, and answered, recklessly:
“I want pretty clothes and jewels, beautiful surroundings, gay times, and lovers, such as other girls have instead of this humdrum, poky existence—so there!”
“Humph!”
It was all Mrs. Flint said aloud, but to herself, she added:
“Good land! I do wish my brother would come home from his eternal wanderings and take charge of his rattled-brained daughter. She’s too pretty and restless, and I don’t see how I’m going to hold her down much longer.”
Cinthia Dawn was seventeen now, and ever since she had been given into her aunt’s sole keeping at five years old, the strait-laced soul, who was as prim and particular as an old maid, had been engaged in the difficult task of “holding down” her spirited young niece. She had even erred on the side of prudence, so great was her anxiety to bring her up in the way she should go.
When the lovely child first came her aunt said frankly to all:
“I don’t want anybody ever to tell Cinthy that she is pretty.”
“She can find it out for herself by just looking in the glass,” objected one of her cronies.
“I’ll tend to that,” said Mrs. Flint, crustily, and she furnished her rooms with cracked and distorted mirrors, whose blurred surfaces gave back indeed no fair reflection of the child’s beauty.
She carried out her program further by dressing the child in the plainest, commonest clothing, and plaiting all her wealth of golden curls in a single tail down her back, though she could not prevent it even then from breaking out on her brow and neck in enchanting little ringlets that a ballroom belle might have envied.
To her dearest crony, Mrs. Flint excused her course by saying, confidentially:
“Cinthy’s mother, who is dead now, was the vainest and prettiest creature on earth, and she did wicked work with her beauty. I don’t want to say aught against her now that she is dead; but Cinthy must have a different raising, that’s all. My brother said so when he put her in my charge. ‘Bring her up good and simple in your old-fashioned way, Rebecca,’ was what he said.”
“That’s right. ‘Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That’s Cinthy’s Bible verse, and I hope she’ll live up to it,” returned the good crony, Deacon Rood’s wife.
So Cinthia Dawn was reared simply and plainly almost to severity. She received her education at the public school, and at home helped her aunt with the housework. Surreptitiously she read poetry and novels.
Such a simple, quiet life—just like thousands and thousands of others—but Cinthia was outgrowing it now. She was seventeen—the most romantic age in the world—and she chafed at the dreariness of her life.
School days were ended now, and her merry mates had their new gowns, their dances, and their lovers. There were none of these for Cinthia Dawn.
Mrs. Flint said her niece was nothing but a child yet, so she was not permitted to attend parties, and she vowed she had no money to spend on finery. As for lovers, if she had any, the bravest would not have dared present himself at Mrs. Flint’s door. She would have said to him as to the veriest tramp:
“Be off!”
It was just the life to drive a pretty, spirited girl frantic with impatience of the present, and longing for something better than she had known—the longing that found impatient expression that afternoon when she watched the dead leaves flying in sodden drifts beneath the chill November rain.
After Mrs. Flint’s curt rejoinder to her complaints, she remained silent several minutes drumming impatiently on the pane, then burst out:
“Oh, Aunt Beck, don’t you want me to run down to the post office for your Christian Advocate?”
“In all this storm?”
“Oh, I won’t mind it a bit! I’m in a mood for fighting the elements!”
“Then take your umbrella and overshoes, and hurry back.”
“Yes, aunt.”
Glad to escape from the monotony of the little brown house, she hurried out into the teeth of the storm and made her way through the village streets to the little post office. The rain blew in her face, and the wind crimsoned her cheeks and made her dark eyes flash like stars. Cinthia did not care. In her splendor of youth and health, she found it exhilarating.
But going back, the storm, that had been gathering its forces for a fiercer onslaught, increased in angry violence.
She had left the paved main street, too, now, and was emerging into the thinly populated suburbs where her home was situated.
A great gust of wind met her at the corner of a street, taking her breath with its fierce onslaught, wrapping her damp skirts about her ankles, and whisking her umbrella from her grasp. She chased it wildly almost a block, only to see it whirled into the middle of the street and crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm wagon lumbering into the little town. Meanwhile, the vagrant wind pelted her with drifts of dead leaves, and the floodgates of heaven opened and poured down torrents of water.
“Take my umbrella, Miss Dawn!” cried the gay musical voice of a young man who had been chasing her as fast as she flew after the umbrella.
Turning with a quick start, she looked into the face of Arthur Varian, a newcomer in the town, with whom she had recently formed an acquaintance. His laughing blue eyes were irresistible, and she cried merrily as she took shelter under the umbrella:
“Didn’t I look comical chasing the parachute? I was hoping no one saw me. Thank you, but I can not deprive you of it.”
“Then you will let me hold it over you? It is large enough for both,” stepping along by her side, and giving her the best half of it as they struggled along against the high wind. “I saw you coming out of the post office and have been trying to overtake you ever since. I thought perhaps you would allow me the pleasure of walking home with you,” continued Arthur Varian, bending his admiring blue eyes on the beautiful face by his side—the bright, arch face with its large, soft dark eyes set off by that aureole of curly golden hair, now blown into the most enchanting spiral rings by the wind and rain.
He had met her several times before, and he knew enough of her lonely life to make him sympathize with her forlornness, even if her beauty had not already charmed him with its girlish perfection.
Cinthia met that glance and looked down with a kindling blush and a wildly beating heart, for—it was of him she had been thinking when she uttered her complaints to Mrs. Flint, longing for the privileges of other young girls of her class that she might have opportunities of meeting him and winning his heart.
Who could blame her? for Arthur Varian was very winning and handsome—tall, with wavy brown hair, regular features, a slight brown mustache, a beautiful mouth—“just made for kissing,” vowed all the girls—well dressed, and having that indefinable air of ease and elegance that betokens good breeding joined to prosperity.
Perhaps the fates had heard Cinthia’s longing for something to happen, for the storm now gathered fresh force, and the darkening earth was irradiated by a vivid and brilliant flash of lightning, followed by a terrific thunder peal.
The rain poured out of heaven like a waterfall, and the fierce driving gale caught the frightened girl up like a feather and tossed her against the young man’s breast and into his arms, which clasped and held her protectingly, while all about them the air was darkened with flying débris and broken branches of trees that swayed, and creaked, and bent, and crashed in agony beneath the cyclonic force of the elements.
Cinthia was not a coward, but the situation was enough to strike terror to the bravest heart. The edge of a cyclone had indeed struck the village, and in almost an instant of time dozens of trees had been uprooted, several houses unroofed, and the air filled with flying projectiles, one of which suddenly struck Arthur Varian with such force that both he and his companion were hurled to the ground. It was a portion of a tin roof and cut a gash on the young man’s hand from which the blood began to stream in a ruddy tide.
In another minute the wind began to abate, and they struggled up to their feet.
“Oh, you are cut, you are bleeding! and you did it to save me! I saw you ward off that horrible missile from me with your hand. It must have killed me had I received the blow, for, as it was, it grazed my head. Oh, what can I do? Let me bind your hand to stop the blood,” sobbed Cinthia, unwinding the silk scarf from her neck and wrapping it tightly, with untaught skill, about his wrist above the wound to stop the spurting blood.
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