A Leap-Year Romance [pp. 211-222]

APPLETONS' JOURNAL.
prised," as she noticed that the "Vita Nuova" was
missing.
It was very lonely at Miss Newell's during the
week while her brother was away. The only inmates of the large, old-fashioned house besides herself were an invalid mother, a little brother, and two
servants. After breakfast, and when the day's marketing had been done, Miss Newell retired to her
own room. It was one she had occupied alone from
her girlhood, and it was filled with the relics of
many a girlish enthusiasm. There was a small case
of geological specimens, a well-prepared herbarium,
the skeleton of a cat she had dissected, and several
birds stuffed by her own hands in her college-days.
The walls were covered with portraits of all styles
and sizes, of what she poetically called the heroines
of the ages, and which she had been at great pains
and much expense to collect. All types of womanhood, historic and fictitious, from Minerva to Mrs.
Somerville, from Chriemhild and Trojan Helen to
Florence Nightingale and George Eliot, were grouped
on the walls with evident care, but upon a principle
not obvious to any but herself. They were framed,
too, in every conceivable way, and not according to
the value or style of the picture, but evidently according to some sense of poetic fitness. Some were
deeply matted in gilt and velvet, and some only bordered by varnished burs, spruce-cones, and oakleaves, and some were framed in spatter-work or
plain white paper curiously folded and cut. A large
and well-selected library occupied one side of the
room, in which historical works seemed to predominate, and all the furniture was rich, but plain
and worn.
Miss Newell seated herself before the small coalstove, and was soon absorbed in the book she had
borrowed. As she read the passionate sonnets she
tried to trace the maze of fact and allegory in their
mystic lines, crammed as full of meaning as a cabalistic text. She saw how the poet's ambition was
fired, and his soul expanded and tempered by the
heat of love into genius-a love which, perhaps, she
who was its object never suspected. She recalled
how the young professor had, the evening before,
contrasted the purity of Dante's passion with the pagan love described by Tibullus and Apuleius, and
the half-sentimental, half-sensuous love of knighterrantry, and the poet's noble frankness with the
vanity of Rousseau, and his willing docility to the
teachings of affliction with the long heart-martyrdoms
of asceticism, until at last, wearied and dissatisfied,
she threw down the book, put on her shawl, and
set out upon her solitary daily walk.
The weather had grown colder in the night, the
wind was biting, and the walks were slippery. But
the usual two miles were faithfully done. As she
returned past the college the hour-bell was ringing,
and she turned her steps, as she was quite in the
habit of doing, toward one of the lecture-rooms
where all resident graduates were allowed to attend
whenever they chose. She had often visited Professor Moors's room, but now she lingered in the
hall till the students had all taken their places. It
required a slight effort to enter, and she hardly knew
whether she was more relieved or disappointed to
find that the wizen-faced Dr. Skinner had been assigned this room, and with his hard, dry sentences
and crispy German accent, was beginning a lecture
on philosophy. She tried to understand something
about the absolute spirit, and pure thought, and
divine archetypal intuitions, but the desolate snowscape which she saw through the window was more
interesting. Just before the close of the hour, however, her attention was arrested by a transition in the
lecture.
"We come now," said the professor, "to Schleiermacher, whose position is in many respects the exact opposite of the pure, dry intellectuality of Hegel.
The former believed that feeling, not thought, is the
absolute; that growth in the consciousness of dependence, not independence, is the true measure of
human progress; that enthusiasm is better than
reasoning or science; that it is delicacy and intensity of feeling that make genius in the artist, conscience in the reformer, faith in the devotee, and the
truest nobility in man, and especially in woman.
The highest and absolute form of feeling is a sense
of dependence upon something that is above us.
His pupil, Neander, summarized his system of religious doctrine in the phrase'The heart makes the
theologian.' There is no such type of the true relation of the Church through all its membership to
Christ as pure wifely love."
Miss Newell had listened to the same words six
years before, but they had made no impression upon
her. Without thinking deeply on what she had heard
and read that morning, she went home with a vague,
half-serious thought that Providence had somehow
conspired with Mrs. Elmore to alter the course of life
she had marked out for herself, but this she vowed
with the greatest earnestness they should never do.
This impression was not lessened when, on entering
the dining-room, she found a formal invitation for
herself and brother to attend the usual New-Year's
reception in the college-parlors, where she knew she
should meet Professor Moors, with whom she had not
spoken since his return from the summer vacation.
When the evening came, Miss Newell found herself instinctively avoiding the young professor. Their
eyes met once or twice during the evening, but toward its close they suddenly found themselves face to
face.
"It is singular," he said, "how we escape each
other. This is the third evening I have lately spent
where you were, but we have not met since last commencement."
Confused to feel that in spite of herself her manner was never more frigid, Miss Newell could only
say:
"I hope your summer was pleasantly passed.
You were in Maine, I think?"
"Yes," he replied. "The lonesome life I lead
here has made me enjoy my home-visits more than
ever before. What a wonderful place this is for
work-so quiet and so healthful! But when one
feels the need of rest and recreation, then the trou
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