we had been friends ever since i could remember, nelly and i. we were just about the same age. our parents were neighbors, in the quiet country town where we both lived. i was an only child; and nelly was an only daughter, with two strong brothers who idolized her.
we were always together. we went to the same school, and sat on the same bench, and used the same desk. we learned the same lessons. i had almost said we thought the same thoughts. we certainly loved the same pleasures. we used to go together, in early spring, to hunt the dainty may-flowers from under the sheltering dead leaves, and to find the shy little blue-eyed violets. we went hand in hand into the still summer woods, and gathered the delicate maiden-hair, and the soft mosses, and all the summer wealth of bud and[pg 35] blossom. gay little birds sang to us. the deep blue sky bent over us, and the happy little brooks murmured and frolicked at our feet.
in autumn we went nutting and apple gathering. in the winter we slid, and coasted, and snowballed. for every season, there was some special pleasure,—and always nelly and i were together,—always sufficient to each other, for company. we never dreamed that any thing could come between us, or that we could ever learn to live without each other.
we were thirteen when nelly's cousin from boston—lill simmonds, her name was—came to see her. it was vacation then, and i had not seen nelly for two days, because it had been raining hard. so i did not know of the expected guest, until one morning nelly's brother tom came over, and told me that his aunt simmonds, from boston, was expected that noon, and with her his cousin lill.
"she'll be a nice playmate for you and nelly," he said. "she's only a year older than you two, and she used to have plenty of fun in her. nelly wants you to come over this afternoon, sure."
[pg 36]
that was the beginning of my feeling hard toward nelly. i was unreasonable, i know, but i thought she might have come to tell me the news, herself. i felt a sort of bitter, shut-out feeling all the forenoon, and after dinner i was half minded not to go over,—to let her have her boston cousin all to herself.
my mother heard some of my speeches, but she was wise enough not to interfere. when she saw, at last, that curiosity and inclination had gotten the better of pique and jealousy, she basted a fresh ruffle in the neck of my afternoon dress, and tied a pretty blue ribbon in my hair, and i looked as neat and suitable for the occasion as possible.
at least i thought so, until i got to nelly's. she did not watch for my coming, and run to the gate to meet me, as usual. of course it was perfectly natural that she should be entertaining her cousin, but i missed the accustomed greeting; and when she heard my voice at the door, and came out of the parlor to speak to me, i know that if my face reflected my heart, it must have worn a most sullen and unamiable expression.
[pg 37]
"i'm so glad you've come, sophie," she said cheerfully. "lill is in the parlor. i want you to like her. but you can't help it, i know, she's so lovely; such a beauty."
"perhaps i shan't see with your eyes," i answered, with what i imagined to be most cutting coldness and dignity.
"oh yes! i guess you will," she laughed. "we have thought alike about most things, all our lives."
i followed her into the parlor, and i saw lill. if you are a country girl who read, and have ever been suddenly confronted with a city young lady in the height of fashion, to whom you were expected to make yourself agreeable, you can, perhaps, understand what i felt; particularly if by nature you are not only sensitive, but somewhat vain, as i am sorry to confess i was. i had been used to think myself as well-dressed, and as well-looking as any of my young neighbors; i was neither as well-dressed nor as well-looking as lill simmonds.
nelly was right. she was a beauty. she was[pg 38] a little taller than nelly or i,—a slender, graceful creature, with a high-bred air. it was years before they had begun to crimp little girls' hair, but i think lill's must have been crimped. it was a perfect golden cloud about her face and shoulders, and all full of little shining waves and ripples. then what eyes she had—star bright and deep blue and with lashes so long that when they drooped they cast a shadow on the pale pink of her cheeks. her features were all delicate and pure; her hands white, with one or two glittering rings upon them; and her clothes! my own gowns had not seemed to me ill-made before; but now i thought nelly and i both looked as if we had come out of the ark. it was the first of september, and her dress had just been made for fall,—a rich, glossy, blue poplin, with soft lace at throat and wrists, and a pin and some tiny ear jewels of exquisitely cut pink coral.
"yes," i thought to myself bitterly, "no wonder nelly was dazzled. she may like to be the contrast, to help miss fine-airs show off; but i object to that character, and i shall keep pretty clear of this house while miss lill is in it."
[pg 39]
i spoke to her politely enough, i suppose; and she answered me, it might have been either shyly or haughtily: i chose in my then mood to think the latter. decidedly the afternoon was not a success.
nelly did her best to make it pleasant; but she and i couldn't go poking about into all sorts of odd places, as we did when we were alone, and we did not know what the boston cousin would like to do; so we put on our company manners and talked, and for an illustration of utter dulness and dreariness commend me to a "talk" between three girls in their early teens, who have nothing of the social ease which comes of experience and culture, and where two of them have nothing in common with the other, as regards daily pursuits and habits of life. lill talked a little about burnham's—it was before loring's day—but we had read no novelists but scott and dickens, and we couldn't discuss with her whether it wasn't too bad that gerald married isabel and did not marry margaret.
we might have brightened a little over the supper, but then mrs. simmonds, who had been[pg 40] sitting upstairs with nelly's mother, was present,—a stately dame, in rustling silk and gleaming jewels, who overawed me completely. i was glad to go home; but the little root of bitterness i had carried in my heart had grown, until, for the time, it choked out every thing sweet and good.
while the boston cousin stayed, i saw little of nelly. i am telling the truth, and i must confess it was my fault. i know now that nelly was unchanged; but, of course, she was very much occupied. whenever i saw her she was so full of lill's praises that i foolishly thought i was nothing to her any more, and lill was every thing. if i had chosen to verify her words, instead of chafe at them, i, too, might have enjoyed lill's grace and beauty, and learned from her a great many things worth knowing. but i took my own course, and if the cup i drank was bitter, it was of my own brewing.
at last, one afternoon, nelly came over by herself to see me. i was most ungracious in my welcome.
"i don't see how you could tear yourself away[pg 41] from your city company," i said, with that small, hateful sarcasm, which is so often a girl's weapon. "they say self-denial is blest: i hope yours will be."
perhaps nelly guessed that my hatefulness had its root in pain; or it may have been that her own heart was too full of something else for her to notice my mood.
"lill is going to-morrow," she said, gently.
"indeed!" i answered; "i don't know how the town will support the loss of so much beauty and grace. i suppose i shall see more of you then; but i must not be selfish enough to rejoice in the general misfortune."
nelly's gentle eyes filled with tears at last.
"sophie," she said, "how can you be so unkind, you whom i have loved all my life? i am going, too, with lill, and that is what i came to tell you. ever since she has been here, aunt simmonds has been trying to persuade mother to let me go back for a year's schooling with lill, but it was not decided until last night. mother thought, at first, that i must wait to have my winter things made;[pg 42] but aunt simmonds said she could get them better in boston, and the same woman would make them for me who makes lill's."
"indeed! how well dressed you will be!" i said bitterly. "how you will respect yourself!"
"sophie, i don't know you," nelly burst out, indignantly. "the hardest of all was to leave you, for we've been together all our lives; but you are making it easy. good-by."
she put her arms round me, even then, and kissed me, and i responded coldly. oh how could i, when i loved her so? i watched her out of sight, and then i sank down upon the grass, and laid my head upon a little bench where we had often sat together, and sobbed and cried till i could scarcely see. i was half tempted to go over to nelly's, and ask her to forgive me; but my wicked pride and jealousy wouldn't let me. lill would be there, i thought, and she wouldn't want me while she had lill. so i stayed away.
the next morning they all went off. when i heard the car-whistle at the little railroad station a mile and a half away, i began to cry again.[pg 43] then, if it had not been too late, i would have gone and implored my friend to forgive me, and not shut me out of her heart. but the day for repentance was over.
the slow months went on. i missed nelly at school, at home, everywhere. i longed for her with an incurable longing. it was to me almost as if she were dead. people wrote many less letters in those days than they do now, and neither nelly nor i had learned to express any thing of our real selves on paper. we exchanged three or four letters, but they amounted to little more than the statement that we were well, and the list of our studies. one look into nelly's eyes would have been worth a thousand such.
there were other pleasant girls in town, but i took none of them into nelly's vacant place: how could i? who of them would remember all my past life, as she did,—she who had shared with me so many perfect days of june, so many long, bright summers and melancholy autumns, and winters white with snow? i was, as i have shown you, jealous and hateful and cruel, but never for a moment fickle.
[pg 44]
at last nelly came again. it was a day in the late june, and she found me just where she had left me, under the old horse-chestnut tree in the great old-fashioned garden. i knew it must be almost time for her coming, but i had not asked any one about it. somehow i couldn't. i very seldom even spoke her name in those days. so she stole upon me unawares, and the first i knew her arms were round me,—her warm, tender lips against my own,—and her sweet, unchanged voice cried,—
"o sophie, this is good, this is coming home, indeed!"
i cried like a very child. nell didn't quite understand that; but then she had not had, like me, a hard place in her heart, which needed happy tears to melt it away. i think, in spite of the tears, i was more glad of the meeting even than she. after a little while she said,—
"come, i want you to go home with me now, and see lill."
will you believe that even then the old, bitter jealousy began to gnaw again at my heart?[pg 45] she had been with lill almost a year; could she not be content to give me a single hour without her? perhaps she saw my thought in my face; for she added, in such a sad, pitiful tone, "poor lill!"
"poor lill," indeed! with her beautiful golden hair, and her eyes like stars, and her lovely gowns, and her city airs, "poor lill!"
"i should never think of calling miss simmonds poor," i said, with the old hardness back in my voice.
"you will when you see her, now," nelly answered gently. "she had a hard fall on the icy pavement, last winter, and she hurt her hip, and it's been growing worse and worse. she can hardly walk at all, now, and she has suffered awfully. but she has been, oh so patient!"
and how i had dared to envy that girl! i was shocked and silenced. i walked along by nelly's side very quietly. when we got there she took me up into her room, and there i saw lill simmonds. i should hardly have known her. the golden glory of hair floated about her still.[pg 46] the eyes were star-bright yet, but the cheeks which the long lashes shaded were pink no longer, and they were so thin and hollow that it was pitiful to see them.
she wore a wrapper of some soft blue stuff, and on her lap lay her frail, transparent hands. she started up to meet us with a smile which for a moment gave back some of the old brightness to her face, but which faded almost instantly. i sat down beside the lounging-chair where she was lying, but i could not talk to her. the sight of her wasted loveliness was all too sad. after a little while she said to nelly,—
"won't you, you are always so good to me, go and fetch me a glass of the cool water from the spring at the foot of the garden?"
nelly went instantly, and then lill turned to me and put her hand on my arm.
"i asked her to go, sophie," she said, "because i wanted to speak to you. i wanted to say something to you which it would hurt her to hear. i used to be very jealous of you, sophie. i wanted nelly to love me best, but she never[pg 47] did. she had loved you so long that i could see you were always first in her heart. and now i am glad. i shall never be well again, and when i am gone i would not like nelly to be so unhappy as she would be if she had loved me first and best. she will miss me, and she will be very sorry for me; but she will have you, and you can comfort her. i am ashamed now of that old jealousy. i think it made me not nice to you last summer."
lill jealous of me! i was dumb with sheer amazement. and i, how much bitterness and injustice i had to confess! but before i could put it into words nelly had come back, and a look from lill kept me silent.
that night, when i went away, i put my arms round my darling and kissed her with my whole heart, as i had not done for a year. she never knew how much went into that kiss, of sorrow and shame and self-reproach.
what months those were which followed! i was constantly with nelly and her cousin. mrs. simmonds was there, but lill spent most of her[pg 48] day-time hours with us girls; to spare her mother, probably, who was with her every night, and also because she loved us both. sometimes, on fine days, she would walk a little under the trees; and i have knelt unseen, in a passion of loving humility, and kissed the grass over which she had dragged after her her helpless foot. growing near to death, she grew in grace. as nelly said, one day,—
"her wings are growing. she will fly away with them soon."
and so she did. through the summer she lingered, suffering much at times, but always patient and gentle and uncomplaining. and when the dead leaves of autumn went fluttering down the wind, she died with the dead summer, and upborne on the wings of some messenger of god her soul went home.
even her mother hardly dared mourn for her,—her life had been so pure and so peaceful,—her death was so tranquil and so happy. i had ceased, long before, to be jealous of her. no one could love her too much. she was my saint;[pg 49] and her memory has hallowed many a thought during the long, world-weary years since. i need but to close my eyes to see a pale, patient face, with its glory of golden hair and its eyes bright as stars; and often, on some soft wind, i seem to hear her voice, speaking again the last words i ever heard her speak,—
"love each other always, my darlings, and remember i loved you both."
we have obeyed her faithfully, nelly and i. through the long years since, no coldness or estrangement has ever come between us. my first and last jealousy was buried in lill's grave; and nelly and i have proved, to our own satisfaction at least, that a friendship between two girls may be strong as it is sweet, faithful as it is fond,—the inalienable riches of a whole life.
