Beyond the Gates. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

weeks.”

      He did not speak even yet, but still held out his arms with that look of unutterably restful love. I felt the elemental tie between parent and child draw me. It seemed to me as if I had reached the foundation of all human feeling; as if I had gone down—how shall I say it?—below the depths of all other love. I had always known I loved him, but not like that. I was greatly moved.

      “But you don’t understand me,” I repeated with some agitation. “I can’t walk.” I thought it very strange that he did not, in consideration of my feebleness, come to me.

      Then for the first time he spoke.

      “Come,” he said gently. His voice sounded quite natural; I only noticed that he spoke under his breath, as if not to awake the nurse, or any person who was in the room.

      At this, I moved, and sat up on the edge of my bed; although I did so easily enough, I lost courage at that point. It seemed impossible to go farther. I felt a little chilly, and remembered, too, that I was not dressed. A warm white woolen wrapper of my own, and my slippers, were within reach, by the head of the bed; Alice wore them when she watched with me. I put these things on, and then paused, expecting to be overcome with exhaustion after the effort. To my surprise, I did not feel tired at all. I believe, rather, I felt a little stronger. As I put the clothes on, I noticed the magenta geranium across the room. These, I think, were the only things which attracted my attention.

      “Come here to me,” repeated Father; he spoke more decidedly, this time with a touch of authority. I remembered hearing him speak just so when Tom was learning to walk; he began by saying, “Come, sonny boy!” but when the baby played the coward, he said, “My son, come here!”

      As if I had been a baby, I obeyed. I put my feet to the floor, and found that I stood strongly. I experienced a slight giddiness for a moment, but when this passed, my head felt clearer than before. I walked steadily out into the middle of the room. Each step was firmer than the other. As I advanced, he came to meet me. My heart throbbed. I thought I should have fallen, not from weakness, but from joy.

      “Don’t be afraid,” he said encouragingly; “that is right. You are doing finely. Only a few steps more. There!”

      It was done. I had crossed the distance which separated us, and my dear Father, after all those years, took me, as he used to do, into his arms. …

      He was the first to speak, and he said:—

      “You poor little girl!—But it is over now.”

      “Yes, it is over now,” I answered. I thought he referred to the difficult walk across the room, and to my long illness, now so happily at an end. He smiled and patted me on the cheek, but made no other answer.

      “I must tell Mother that you are here,” I said presently. I had not looked behind me or about me. Since the first sight of my father sitting in the window, I had not observed any other person, and could not have told who was in the room.

      “Not yet,” my father said. “We may not speak to her at present. I think we had better go.”

      I lifted my face to say, “Go where?” but my lips did not form the question. It was just as it used to be when he came from the study and held out his hand, and said “Come,” and I went anywhere with him, neither asking, nor caring, so long as it was with him; and then he used to play or walk with me, and I forgot the whole world besides. I put my hand in his without a question, and we moved towards the door.

      “I suppose you had better go this way,” he said, with a slight hesitation, as we passed out and across the hall.

      “Any way you like best,” I said joyfully. He smiled, and still keeping my hand, led me down the stairs. As we went down, I heard the little Swiss clock, above in my room, strike the half hour after two.

      I noticed everything in the hall as we descended; it was as if my vision, as well as the muscles of motion, grew stronger with each moment. I saw the stair-carpeting with its faded Brussels pattern, once rich, and remembered counting the red roses on it the night I went up with the fever on me; reeling and half delirious, wondering how I could possibly afford to be sick. I saw the hat-tree with Tom’s coat, and Alice’s blue Shetland shawl across the old hair-cloth sofa. As we opened the door, I saw the muffled bell. I stood for a moment upon the threshold of my old home, not afraid but perplexed.

      My father seemed to understand my thoughts perfectly, though I had not spoken, and he paused for my reluctant mood. I thought of all the years I had spent there. I thought of my childhood and girlhood; of the tempestuous periods of life which that quiet roof had hidden; of the calms upon which it had brooded. I thought of sorrows that I had forgotten, and those which I had prayed in vain to forget. I thought of temptations and of mistakes and of sins, from which I had fled back asking these four walls to shelter me. I thought of the comfort and blessedness that I had never failed to find in the old house. I shrank from leaving it. It seemed like leaving my body.

      When the door had been opened, the night air rushed in. I could see the stars, and knew, rather than felt, that it was cold. As we stood waiting, an icicle dropped from the eaves, and fell, breaking into a dozen diamond flashes at our feet. Beyond, it was dark.

      “It seems to me a great exposure,” I said reluctantly, “to be taken out into a winter night—at such an hour, too! I have been so very sick.”

      “Are you cold?” asked my father gently. After some thought I said:—

      “No, sir.”

      For I was not cold. For the first time I wondered why.

      “Are you tired?”

      No, I was not tired.

      “Are you afraid?”

      “A little, I think, sir.”

      “Would you like to go back, Molly, and rest awhile?”

      “If you please, Papa.”

      The old baby-word came instinctively in answer to the baby-name. He led me like a child, and like a child I submitted. It was like him to be so thoughtful of my weakness. My dear father was always one of those rare men who think of little things largely, and so bring, especially into the lives of women, the daily comfort which makes the infinite preciousness of life.

      We went into the parlor and sat down. It was warm there and pleasant. The furnace was well on, and embers still in the grate. The lamps were not lighted, yet the room was not dark. I enjoyed being down there again after all those weeks up-stairs, and was happy in looking at the familiar things, the afghan on the sofa, and the magazines on the table, uncut because of my illness; Mother’s work-basket, and Alice’s music folded away.

      “It was always a dear old room,” said Father, seating himself in his own chair, which we had kept for twenty years in its old place. He put his head back, and gazed peacefully about.

      When I felt rested, and better, I asked him if we should start now.

      “Just as you please,” he said quietly. “There is no hurry. We are never hurried.”

      “If we have anything to do,” I said, “I had rather do it now I think.”

      “Very well,” said Father, “that is like you.” He rose and held out his hand again. I took it once more, and once more we went out to the threshold of our old home. This time I felt more confidence, but when the night air swept in, I could not help shrinking a little in spite of myself, and showing the agitation which overtook me.

      “Father!” I cried, “Father! where are we going?”

      My father turned at this, and looked at me solemnly. His face seemed to shine and glow. He looked from what I felt was a great height. He said:—

      “Are you really afraid, Mary, to go anywhere with me?”

      “No, no!” I protested in a passion of regret and trust, “my dear father! I would go any where