Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World

It was an evening in early autumn in the last year of the nineteenth century. We were nearing the close of a voyage as calm and peaceful as our previous lives.

Margaret had been in Europe a couple of years and I had just been over to bring her home, and we were now expecting to reach New York in a day or two.

Margaret and I were the best of friends. Indeed, we had loved each other from our earliest recollection. No formal words of betrothal had ever passed between us, but for years we had spoken of our future marriage as naturally as if we were the most regularly engaged couple in the world.

“Walter,” asked Margaret in her impulsive way, “at what temperature does mercury melt?”

“Well, to hazard a guess,” I replied, “I should say about one degree above its freezing point. Why, do you think of making an experiment?”

“Yes, on you. And I am going to begin by being very frank with you. You have made me a number of hurried visits during my stay in Europe, but we have seen more of each other in the course of this voyage than for two long years. I trust you will not be offended when I say I hoped to find you changed. I have never spoken to you about this, even in my letters, and it is only because I am a little older now, and because my love for you has increased with every day of life, that I have the courage to frame these words.”

“Do tell me what it is,” I exclaimed, thoroughly alarmed at her serious manner. “Let me know how I have disappointed you and I will make what amends I can. Tell me the nature of the change you have been looking for and I will begin the transformation at once, before my character becomes fixed.”

“Alas! and if it should be already fixed,” she replied, without a smile. “Perhaps it is unreasonable in me to expect it in you as a man, when you had so little of it as a boy; but I used to think it was only shyness then, and always hoped you would outgrow that and gradually become an ideal lover. You have such a multitude of other perfections, however, that it may be nature has denied you this so that I may be reminded that you are human. If the choice had been left with me I think I should have preferred to leave out some other quality in the make-up of your character, good as they all are.”

“What bitter pill is this,” I asked, “that you are sugar-coating to such an extent? Don’t you see that I am aching to begin the improvement in my manners, as soon as you point out the direction?”

“You must know what I mean from my first abrupt question,” she answered. “To make an extreme comparison, frozen mercury is warm beside you, Walter. If you are really to be loyal knight of mine I must send you on a quest for your heart.”

“Ah, I supposed it was understood that I had given it to you.”

“I have never seen it,” she continued, “and you have never before said as much as is contained in those last words. Here we are, talking of many things we shall do after we are married, and yet you have nothing to say of all that wonderful and beautiful world of romance that ought to come before marriage. Is this voyage to come to an end and mean no more to us than to these hundreds of passengers around us, who seem only intent to get back to their work at the earliest possible moment? And is our wedding day to approach and pass and be looked upon merely as part of the necessary and becoming business of our lives? In short, am I never to hear a real love note?”

“Margaret, I have a sister. You know something of the depth of my affection for her. When I meet her in New York to-morrow or next day, if I should throw my arms around her neck and exclaim, in impassioned tones, ‘My sister, I love you,’ what would she think of me?”