After the Storm

I saw Mr. Emerson yesterday," said Mrs. Everet. She was sitting

with Irene in her own house in New York.

"Did you?" Irene spoke evenly and quietly, but did not turn her face

toward Mrs. Everet.

"Yes. I saw him at my husband's store. Mr. Everet has engaged him to

conduct an important suit, in which many thousands of dollars are at

stake."

"How does be look?" inquired Irene, without showing any feelings but

still keeping her face turned from Mrs Everet.

"Well, I should say, though rather too much frosted for a man of his

years."

"Gray, do you mean?" Irene manifested some surprise.

"Yes; his hair and beard are quite sprinkled with time's white

snow-flakes."

"He is only forty," remarked Irene.

"I should say fifty, judging from his appearance."

"Only forty." And a faint sigh breathed on the lips of Irene. She

did not look around at her friend but sat very still, with her face

turned partly away. Mrs. Everet looked at her closely, to read, if

possible, what was passing in her mind. But the countenance of Irene

was too much hidden. Her attitude, however, indicated intentness of

thought, though not disturbing thought.

"Rose," she said at length, "I grow less at peace with myself as the

years move onward."

"You speak from some passing state of mind," suggested Mrs. Everet.

"No; from a gradually forming permanent state. Ten years ago I

looked back upon the past in a stern, self-sustaining,

martyr-spirit. Five years ago all things wore a different aspect. I

began to have misgivings; I could not so clearly make out my case.

New thoughts on the subject--and not very welcome ones--began to

intrude. I was self-convicted of wrong; yes, Rose, of a great and an

irreparable wrong. I shut my eyes; I tried to look in other

directions; but the truth, once seen, could not pass from the range

of mental vision. I have never told you that I saw Mr. Emerson five

years ago. The effect of that meeting was such that I could not

speak of it, even to you. We met on one of the river steamboats--met

and looked into each other's eyes for just a moment. It may only be

a fancy of mine, but I have thought sometimes that, but for this

seemingly accidental meeting, he would have married again."

"Why do you think so?" asked Mrs. Everet.

Irene did not answer for some moments. She hardly dared venture to

put what she had seen in words. It was something that she felt more

like hiding even from her own consciousness, if that were possible.

But, having ventured so far, she could not well hold back. So she

replied, keeping her voice into as dead a level as it was possible

to assume: "He was sitting in earnest conversation with a young lady, and from

the expression of her face, which I could see, the subject on which

he was speaking was evidently one in which more than her thought was

interested. I felt at the time that he was on the verge of a new

life-experiment--was about venturing upon a sea on which he had once

made shipwreck. Suddenly he turned half around and looked at me

before I had time to withdraw my eyes--looked at me with a strange,

surprised, startled look. In another moment a form came between us;

when it passed I was lost from his gaze in the crowd of passengers.

I have puzzled myself a great many times over that fact of his

turning his eyes, as if from some hidden impulse, just to the spot

where I was sitting. There are no accidents--as I have often heard

you say--in the common acceptation of the term; therefore this was

no accident."