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St. Elmo

<h2 id="id03277" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> "I am truly thankful that you have returned! I am quite worn out trying to humor Felix's whims, and take your place. He has actually lost ten pounds; and if you had staid away a month longer I think it would have finished my poor boy, who has set you up as an idol in his heart. He almost had a spasm last week, when his father told him he had better reconcile himself to your absence, as he believed that you would never come back to the drudgery of the schoolroom. I am very anxious about him; his health is more feeble than it has been since he was five years old. My dear, you have no idea how you have been missed! Your admirers call by scores to ascertain when you may be expected home; and I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that there is a champagne basketful of periodicals and letters upstairs, that have arrived recently. You will find them piled on the table and desk in your room." "Where are the children?" asked Edna, glancing around the sitting-room into which Mrs. Andrews had drawn her. "Hattie is spending the day with Lila Manning, who is just recovering from a severe attack of scarlet fever, and Felix is in the library trying to sleep. He has one of his nervous headaches to-day. Poor fellow! he tries so hard to overcome his irritable temper and to grow patient, that I am growing fonder of him every day. How travel-spent and ghastly you are! Sit down, and I will order some refreshments. Take this wine, my dear, and presently you shall have a cup of chocolate." "Thank you, not any wine. I only want to see Felix." She went to the library, cautiously opened the door, and crept softly across the floor to the end of the sofa. The boy lay looking through the window, and up beyond the walls and chimneys, at the sapphire pavement, where rolled the sun. Casual observers thought the cripple's face ugly and disagreeable; but the tender, loving smile that lighted the countenance of the governess as she leaned forward, told that some charm lingered in the sharpened features overcast with sickly sallowness. In his large, deep-set eyes, over which the heavy brows arched like a roof, she saw now a strange expression that frightened her. Was it the awful shadow of the Three Singing Spinners, whom Catullus painted at the wedding of Peleus? As the child looked into the blue sky, did he catch a glimpse of their trailing white robes, purple-edged—of their floating rose-colored veils? Above all, did he hear the unearthly chorus which they chanted as they spun? "Currite ducentes, subteinina currite fusi!" The governess was seized by a vague apprehension as she watched her pupil, and bending down, she said, fondly: "Felix, my darling, I have come back! Never again while I live will I leave you." The almost bewildering joy that flashed into his countenance mutely but eloquently welcomed her, as kneeling beside the sofa she wound her arms around him, and drew his head to her shoulder. "Edna, is Mr. Hammond dead?" "No, he is almost well again, and needs me no more." "I need you more than anybody else ever did. Oh, Edna! I thought sometimes you would stay at the South that you love so well, and I should see you no more; and then all the light seemed to die out of the world, and the flowers were not sweet, and the stars were not bright, and oh! I was glad I had not long to live." "Hush! you must not talk so. How do you know that you may not live as long as Ahasuerus, the 'Everlasting Jew'? My dear little boy, in all this wide earth, you are the only one whom I have to love and cling to, and we will be happy together. Darling, your head aches to-day?" She pressed her lips twice to his hot forehead. "Yes; but the heartache was much the hardest to bear until you came. Mamma has been very good and kind, and staid at home and read to me; but I wanted you, Edna. I do not believe I have been wicked since you left; for I prayed all the while that God would bring you back to me. I have tried hard to be patient." With her cheek nestled against his, Edna told him many things that had occurred during their separation, and noticed that his eyes brightened suddenly and strangely. "Edna, I have a secret to tell you; something that even mamma is not to know just now. You must not laugh at me. While you were gone I wrote a little MS., and it is dedicated to you! and some day I hope it will be printed. Are you glad, Edna? My beautiful, pale Edna!" "Felix, I am very glad you love me sufficiently to dedicate your little MS. to me; but, my dear boy, I must see it before I can say I am glad you wrote it." "If you had been here, it would not have been written, because then I should merely have talked out all the ideas to you; but you were far away, and so I talked to my paper. After all, it was only a dream. One night I was feverish, and mamma read aloud those passages that you marked in that great book, Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea, that you admire and quote so often; and of which I remember you said once, in talking to Mr. Manning, that 'it rolled its warm, beautiful, sparkling waves of thought across the cold, gray sea of science, just like the Gulf Stream it treated of.' Two of the descriptions which mamma read were so splendid that they rang in my ears like the music of the Swiss Bell-Ringers. One was the account of the atmosphere, by Dr. Buist of Bombay, and the other was the description of the Indian Ocean, which was quoted from Schleiden's Lecture. My fever was high, and when at last I went to sleep, I had a queer dream about madrepores and medusae, and I wrote it down as well as I could, and called it 'Algae Adventures, in a Voyage Round the World.' Edna, I have stolen something from you, and as you will be sure to find it out when you read my little story, where there is a long, hard word missing in the MS., I will tell you about it now. Do you recollect talking to me one evening, when we were walking on the beach at The Willows, about some shell-clad animalcula, which you said were so very small that Professor Schultze, of Bonn, found no less than a million and a half of their minute shells in an ounce of pulverized quartz, from the shore of Mo la di Gaeta? Well, I put all you told me in my little MS.; but, for my life, I could not think of the name of the class to which they belong. Do you recollect it?" "Let me think a moment. Was it not Foraminifera?" "That's the identical word—'Foraminifera!' No wonder I could not think of it! Six syllables tied up in a scientific knot. Phew! it makes my head ache worse to try to recollect it. How stoop-shouldered your memory must be from carrying such heavy loads! It is a regular camel." "Yes; it is a meek, faithful beast of burden, and will very willingly bear the weight of that scientific name until you want to use it; so do not tax your mind now. You said you stole it from me, but my dear, ambitious authorling, my little round-jacket scribbler, I wish you to understand distinctly that I do not consider that I have been robbed. The fact was discovered by Professor Schultze, and bequeathed by him to the world. From that instant it became universal, common property, which any man, woman, or child may use at pleasure, provided a tribute of gratitude is paid to the donor. Every individual is in some sort an intellectual bank, issuing bills of ideas (very often specious, but not always convertible into gold or silver); and now, my precious little boy, recollect that just as long as I have any capital left, you can borrow; and some day I will turn Shylock, and make you pay me with usury." "Edna, I should like above all things to write a book of stories for poor, sick children; little tales that would make them forget their suffering and deformity. If I could even reconcile one lame boy to being shut up indoors, while others are shouting and skating in the sunshine, I should not feel as if I were so altogether useless in the world. Edna, do you think that I shall ever be able to do so?" "Perhaps so, dear Felix; certainly, if God wills it. When you are stronger we will study and write together, but to-day you must compose yourself and be silent. Your fever is rising." "The doctor left some medicine yonder in that goblet, but mamma has forgotten to give it to me. I will take a spoonful now, if you please." His face was much flushed; and as she kissed him and turned away, he exclaimed: "Oh! where are you going?" "To my room, to take off my hat." "Do not be gone long. I am so happy now that you are here again. But I don't want you to get out of my sight. Come back soon, and bathe my head." On the following day, when Mr. Manning called to welcome her home, he displayed an earnestness and depth of feeling which surprised the governess. Putting his hand on her arm, he said in a tone that had lost its metallic ring: "How fearfully changed since I saw you last! I knew you were not strong enough to endure the trial; and if I had had a right to interfere, you should never have gone." "Mr. Manning, I do not quite understand your meaning." "Edna, to see you dying by inches is bitter indeed! I believed that you would marry Murray—at least I knew any other woman would—and I felt that to refuse his affection would be a terrible trial, through which you could not pass with impunity. Why you rejected him I have no right to inquire, but I have a right to ask you to let me save your life. I am well aware that you do not love me, but at least you can esteem and entirely trust me; and once more I hold out my hand to you and say, give me the wreck of your life! oh! give me the ruins of your heart! I will guard you tenderly; we will go to Europe—to the East; and rest of mind, and easy travelling, and change of scene will restore you. I never realized, never dreamed how much my happiness depended upon you, until you left the city. I have always relied so entirely upon myself, feeling the need of no other human being; but now, separated from you I am restless, am conscious of a vague discontent. If you spend the next year as you have spent the last, you will not survive it. I have conferred with your physician. He reluctantly told me your alarming condition, and I have come to plead with you for the last time not to continue your suicidal course, not to destroy the life which, if worthless to you, is inexpressibly precious to a man who prays to be allowed to take care of it. A man who realizes that it is necessary to the usefulness and peace of his own lonely life; who wishes no other reward on earth but the privilege of looking into your approving eyes, when his daily work is ended, and he sits down at his fireside. Edna! I do not ask for your love, but I beg for your hand, your confidence, your society—for the right to save you from toil. Will you go to the Old World with me?" Looking suddenly up at him, she was astonished to find tears in his searching and usually cold eyes. Scandinavian tradition reports that seven parishes were once overwhelmed, and still lie buried under snow and ice, and yet occasionally those church-bells are heard ringing clearly under the glaciers of the Folge Fond. So, in the frozen, crystal depths of this man's nature, his long silent, smothered affections began to chime. A proud smile trembled over Edna's face, as she saw how entirely she possessed the heart of one, whom above all other men she most admired. "Mr. Manning, the assertion that you regard your life as imperfect, incomplete, without the feeble complement of mine—that you find your greatest happiness in my society, is the most flattering, the most gratifying tribute which ever has been, or ever can be paid to my intellect. It is a triumph indeed; and, because unsought, surely it is a pardonable pride that makes my heart throb. This assurance of your high regard is the brightest earthly crown I shall ever wear. But, sir, you err egregiously in supposing that you would be happy wedded to a woman who did not love you. You think now that if we were only married, my constant presence in your home, my implicit confidence in your character, would fully content you; but here you fail to understand your own heart, and I know that the consciousness that my affection was not yours would make you wretched. No, no! my dear, noble friend! God never intended us for each other. I can not go to the Old World with you. I know how peculiarly precarious is my tenure of life, and how apparently limited is my time for work in this world, but I am content. I try to labor faithfully, listening for the summons of Him who notices even the death of sparrows. God will not call me hence, so long as He has any work for me to do on earth; and when I become useless, and can no longer serve Him here, I do not wish to live. Through Christ I am told, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' Mr. Manning, I am not ignorant of, nor indifferent to, my physical condition; but, thank God! I can say truly, I am not troubled, neither am I afraid, and my faith is— 'All as God wills, who wisely heeds, To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told.'" The editor took off his glasses and wiped them, but the dimness was in his eyes; and after a minute, during which he recovered his old calmness, and hushed the holy chime, muffling the Folge Fond Bells, he said gayly and quietly: "Edna, one favor, at least, you will grant me. The death of a relative in Louisiana has placed me in possession of an ample fortune, and I wish you to take my little Lila and travel for several years. You are the only woman I ever knew to whom I would entrust her and her education, and it would gratify me beyond expression to feel that I had afforded you the pleasure which can not fail to result from such a tour. Do not be too proud to accept a little happiness from my hands." "Thank you, my generous, noble friend! I gratefully accept a great deal of happiness at this instant, but your kind offer I must decline. I can not leave Felix." He sighed, took his hat, and his eyes ran over the face and figure of the governess. "Edna Earl, your stubborn will makes you nearly akin to those gigantic fuci which are said to grow and flourish as submarine forests in the stormy channel of Terra del Fuego, where they shake their heads defiantly, always trembling, always triumphing, in the fierce lashing of waves that wear away rocks. You belong to a very rare order of human algae, rocked and reared in the midst of tempests that would either bow down, or snap asunder, or beat out most natures. As you will not grant my petition, try to forget it; we will bury the subject. Good-bye! I shall call to-morrow afternoon to take you to drive." With renewed zest Edna devoted every moment stolen from Felix, to the completion of her new book. Her first had been a "bounteous promise"—at least so said criticdom—and she felt that the second would determine her literary position, would either place her reputation as an author beyond all cavil, or utterly crush her ambition. Sometimes as she bent over her MS., and paused to reread some passage just penned, which she had laboriously composed, and thought particularly good as an illustration of the idea she was striving to embody perspicuously, a smile would flit across her countenance while she asked herself: "Will my readers see it as I see it? Will they thank me for my high opinion of their culture, in assuming that it will be quite as plain to them as to me? If there should accidentally be an allusion to classical or scientific literature, which they do not understand at the first hasty, careless, novel-reading glance, will they inform themselves, and then appreciate my reason for employing it, and thank me for the hint; or will they attempt to ridicule my pedantry? When will they begin to suspect that what they may imagine sounds 'learned' in my writings, merely appears so to them because they have not climbed high enough to see how vast, how infinite is the sphere of human learning? No, no, dear reader, shivering with learning-phobia, I am not learned. You are only a little, a very little more ignorant. Doubtless you know many things which I should be glad to learn; come, let us barter. Let us all study the life of Giovanni Pico Mirandola, and then we shall begin to understand the meaning of the word 'learned.'" Edna unintentionally and continually judged her readers according to her own standard, and so eager, so unquenchable was her thirst for knowledge, that she could not understand how the utterance of some new fact, or the redressing and presentation of some forgotten idea, could possibly be regarded as an insult by the person thus benefited. Her first book taught her what was termed her "surplus paraded erudition," had wounded the amour propre of the public; but she was conscientiously experimenting on public taste, and though some of her indolent, luxurious readers, who wished even their thinking done by proxy, shuddered at the "spring-water pumped upon their nerves," she good-naturedly overlooked their grimances and groans, and continued the hydropathic treatment even in her second book, hoping some good effects from the shock. Of one intensely gratifying fact she could not fail to be thoroughly informed, by the avalanche of letters which almost daily covered her desk; she had at least ensconced herself securely in a citadel, whence she could smilingly defy all assaults—in the warm hearts of her noble countrywomen. Safely sheltered in their sincere and devoted love, she cared little for the shafts that rattled and broke against the rocky ramparts, and, recoiling, dropped out of sight in the moat below. So with many misgivings, and much hope, and great patience, she worked on assiduously, and early in summer her book was finished and placed in the publisher's hands. In the midst of her anxiety concerning its reception, a new and terrible apprehension took possession of her, for it became painfully evident that Felix, whose health had never been good, was slowly but steadily declining. Mrs. Andrews and Edna took him to Sharon, to Saratoga, and to various other favorite resorts for invalids, but with no visible results that were at all encouraging, and at last they came home almost disheartened. Dr. Howell finally prescribed a sea-voyage, and a sojourn of some weeks at Eaux Bonne in the Pyrennes, as those waters had effected some remarkable cures. As the doctor quitted the parlor, where he held a conference with Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, the latter turned to her husband, saying: "It is useless to start anywhere with Felix unless Miss Earl can go with us; for he would fret himself to death in a week. Really, Louis, it is astonishing to see how devoted they are to each other. Feeble as that woman is, she will always sit up whenever there is any medicine to be given during the night; and while he was ill at Sharon, she did not close her eyes for a week. I can't help feeling jealous of his affection for her, and I spoke to her about it. He was asleep at the time, with his hand grasping one of hers; and when I told her how trying it was for a mother to see her child's whole heart given to a stranger, to hear morning, noon, and night, 'Edna,' always 'Edna,' never once 'mamma,' I wish you could have seen the strange, suffering expression that came into her pale face. Her lips trembled so that she could scarcely speak, but she said meekly, 'Oh! forgive me if I have won your child's heart; but I love him. You have your husband and daughter, your brother and sister; but I—oh! I have only Felix! I have nothing else to cling to in all this world!' Then she kissed his poor little fingers, and wept as if her heart would break, and wrung her hands, and begged me again and again to forgive her if he loved her best. She is the strangest woman I ever knew; sometimes, when she is sitting by me in church, I watch her calm, cold, white face, and she makes me think of a snow statue; but if Felix says anything to arouse her feelings and call out her affection, she is a volcano. It is very rarely that one finds a beautiful woman, distinguished by her genius, admired and courted by the reading public, devoting herself as she does to our dear little crippled darling. While I confess I am jealous of her, her kindness to my child makes me love her more than I can express. Louis, she must go with us. Poor thing! she seems to be failing almost as fast as Felix; and I verily believe if he should die, it would kill her. Did you notice how she paced the floor while the doctors were consulting in Felix's room? She loves nothing but my precious lame boy." "Certainly, Kate, she must go with you. I quite agree with you, my dear, that Felix is dependent upon her, and would not derive half the benefit from the trip if she remained at home. I confess she has cured me to a great extent of my horror of literary characters. She is the only one I ever saw who was really lovable, and not a walking parody on her own writings. You would be surprised at the questions constantly asked me about her habits and temper. People seem so curious to learn all the routine of her daily life. Last week a member of our club quoted something from her writings, and said that she was one of the few authors of the day whose books, without having first examined, he would put into the hands of his daughters. He remarked: 'I can trust my girls' characters to her training, for she is a true woman; and if she errs at all in any direction, it is the right one, only a little too rigidly followed.' I am frequently asked how she is related to me, for people can not believe that she is merely the governess of our children. Kate, will you tell her that it is my desire that she should accompany you? Speak to her at once, that I may know how many staterooms I shall engage on the steamer." "Come with me, Louis, and speak to her yourself." They went upstairs together, and paused on the threshold of Felix's room to observe what was passing within. The boy was propped by pillows into an upright position on the sofa, and was looking curiously into a small basket which Edna held on her lap. She was reading to him a touching little letter just received from an invalid child, who had never walked, who was confined always to the house, and wrote to thank her, in sweet, childish style, for a story which she had read in the Magazine, and which made her very happy. The invalid stated that her chief amusement consisted in tending a few flowers that grew in pots in her windows; and in token of her gratitude, she had made a nosegay of mignonette, pansies, and geranium leaves, which she sent with her scrawling letter. In conclusion, the child asked that the woman whom, without having seen, she yet loved, would be so kind as to give her a list of such books as a little girl ought to study, and to write her "just a few lines" that she could keep under her pillow, to look at now and then. As Edna finished reading the note, Felix took it, to examine the small, indistinct characters, and said: "Dear little thing! Don't you wish we knew her? 'Louie Lawrence.' Of course, you will answer it, Edna?" "Yes, immediately, and tell her how grateful I am for her generosity in sparing me a portion of her pet flowers. Each word in her sweet little letter is as precious as a pearl, for it came from the very depths of her pure heart." "Oh! what a blessed thing it is to feel that you are doing some good in the world! That little Louie says she prays for you every night before she goes to sleep! What a comfort such letters must be to you! Edna, how happy you look! But there are tears shining in your eyes, they always come when you are glad. What books will you tell her to study?" "I will think about the subject, and let you read my answer. Give me the 'notelet'; I want to put it away securely among my treasures. How deliciously fragrant the flowers are! Only smell them, Felix! Here, my darling, I will give them to you, and write to the little Louie how happy she made two people." She lifted the delicate bouquet so daintily fashioned by fairy child-fingers, inhaled the perfume, and, as she put it in the thin fingers of the cripple, she bent forward and kissed his fever-parched lips. At this instant Felix saw his parents standing at the door, and held up the flowers triumphantly. "Oh, mamma! come smell this mignonette. Why can't we grow some in boxes in our window?" Mr. Andrews leaned over his son's pillows, softly put his hand on the boy's forehead, and said: "My son, Miss Earl professes to love you very much, but I doubt whether she really means all she says; and I am determined to satisfy myself fully. Just now I can not leave my business, but mamma, intends to take you to Europe next week, and I want to know whether Miss Earl will leave all her admirers here, and go with you and help mamma to nurse you. Do you think she will?" Mrs. Andrews stood with her hand resting on the shoulder of the governess, watching the varying expression of her child's countenance. "I think, papa—I hope she will; I believe she—" He paused, and, struggling up from his pillows, he stretched out his poor little arms, and exclaimed: "Oh, Edna! you will go with me? You promised you would never forsake me! Tell papa you will go." His head was on her shoulder, his arms were clasped tightly around her neck. She laid her face on his, and was silent. Mr. Andrews placed his hand on the orphan's bowed head. "Miss Earl, you must let me tell you that I look upon you as a member of my family; that my wife and I love you almost as well as if you were one of our children; and I hope you will not refuse to accompany Kate on the tour she contemplates. Let me take your own father's place; and I shall regard it as a great favor to me and mine if you will consent to go, and allow me to treat you always as I do my Hattie. I have no doubt you will derive as much benefit from travelling, as I certainly hope for Felix." "Thank you, Mr. Andrews, I appreciate your generosity, and I prize the affection and confidence which you and your wife have shown me. I came, an utter stranger, into your house, and you kindly made me one of the family circle. I am alone in the world, and have become strongly attached to your children. Felix is not merely my dear pupil, he is my brother, my companion, my little darling! I can not be separated from him. Next to his mother he belongs to me. Oh! I will travel with him anywhere that you and Mrs. Andrews think it best he should go. I will never, never leave him." She disengaged the boy's arms, laid him back on his pillows, and went to her own room. In the midst of prompt preparations for departure Edna's new novel appeared. She had christened it "SHINING THORNS ON THE HEARTH," and dedicated it "To my countrywomen, the Queens who reign thereon." The aim of the book was to discover the only true and allowable and womanly sphere of feminine work, and, though the theme was threadbare, she fearlessly picked up the frayed woof and rewove it. The tendency of the age was to equality and communism, and this, she contended, was undermining the golden thrones shining in the blessed and hallowed light of the hearth, whence every true woman ruled the realm of her own family. Regarding every pseudo "reform" which struck down the social and political distinction of the sexes, as a blow that crushed one of the pillars of woman's throne, she earnestly warned the Crowned Heads of the danger to be apprehended from the unfortunate and deluded female malcontents, who, dethroned in their own realm, and despised by their quondam subjects, roamed as pitiable, royal exiles, threatening to usurp man's kingdom; and to proud, happy mothers, guarded by Praetorian bands of children, she reiterated the assurance that "Those who rock the cradle rule the world." Most carefully she sifted the records of history, tracing in every epoch the sovereigns of the hearth-throne who had reigned wisely and contentedly, ennobling and refining humanity; and she proved by illustrious examples that the borders of the feminine realm could not be enlarged, without rendering the throne unsteady, and subverting God's law of order. Woman reigned by divine right only at home. If married, in the hearts of husband and children, and not in the gilded, bedizened palace of fashion, where thinly veiled vice and frivolity hold carnival, and social upas and social asps wave and trail. If single, in the affections of brothers and sisters and friends, as the golden sceptre in the hands of parents. If orphaned, she should find sympathy and gratitude and usefulness among the poor and the afflicted. Consulting the statistics of single women, and familiarizing herself with the arguments advanced by the advocates of that "progress," which would indiscriminately throw open all professions to women, she entreated the poor of her own sex, if ambitious, to become sculptors, painters, writers, teachers in schools or families; or else to remain mantau-makers, milliners, spinners, dairymaids; but on the peril of all womanhood not to meddle with scalpel or red tape, and to shun rostra of all description, remembering St. Paul's injunction, that "IT IS NOT PERMITTED UNTO WOMEN TO SPEAK"; and even that "IT IS A SHAME FOR WOMEN TO SPEAK IN THE CHURCH." To married women who thirsted for a draught of the turbid waters of politics, she said: "If you really desire to serve the government under which you live, recollect that it was neither the speeches thundered from the forum, nor the prayers of priests and augurs, nor the iron tramp of glittering legions, but the ever triumphant, maternal influence, the potent, the pleading 'My son!' of Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, that saved Rome." To discontented spinsters, who travelled like Pandora over the land, haranguing audiences that secretly laughed at and despised them, to these unfortunate women, clamoring for power and influence in the national councils, she pointed out that quiet, happy home at "Barley Wood," whence immortal Hannah More sent forth those writings which did more to tranquilize England, and bar the hearts of its yeomanry against the temptations of red republicanism than all the eloquence of Burke, and the cautious measures of Parliament. Some errors of style, which had been pointed out by critics as marring her earlier writings, Edna had endeavored to avoid in this book, which she humbly offered to her countrywomen as the best of which she was capable. From the day of its appearance it was a success; and she had the gratification of hearing that some of the seed she had sown broadcast in the land fell upon good ground, and promised an abundant harvest. Many who called to bid her good-bye on the day before the steamer sailed, found it impossible to disguise their apprehensions that she would never return; and some who looked tearfully into her face and whispered "God-speed!" thought they saw the dread signet of death set on her white brow. To Edna it was inexpressibly painful to cross the Atlantic while Mr. Hammond's health was so feeble; and over the long farewell letter which she sent him, with a copy of her new book, the old man wept. Mrs. Murray had seemed entirely estranged since that last day spent at Le Bocage, and had not written a line since the orphan's return to New York. But when she received the new novel, and the affectionate, mournful, meek note that accompanied it, Mrs. Murray laid her head on her son's bosom and sobbed aloud. Dr. Howell and Mr. Manning went with Edna aboard the steamer, and both laughed heartily at her efforts to disengage herself from a pertinacious young book-vender, who, with his arms full of copies of her own book, stopped her on deck, and volubly extolled its merits, insisting that she should buy one to while away the tedium of the voyage. Dr. Howell gave final directions concerning the treatment of Felix, and then came to speak to the governess. "Even now, sadly as you have abused your constitution, I shall have some hope of seeing gray hairs about your temples, if you will give yourself unreservedly to relaxation of mind. You have already accomplished so much that you can certainly afford to rest for some months at least. Read nothing, write nothing (except long letters to me), study nothing but the aspects of nature in European scenery, and you will come back improved to the country that is so justly proud of you. Disobey my injunctions, and I shall soon be called to mourn over the announcement that you have found an early grave, far from your native land, and among total strangers. God bless you, dear child! and bring you safely back to us." As he turned away, Mr. Manning took her hand and said: "I hope to meet you in Rome early in February; but something might occur to veto my programme. If I should never see you again in this world, is there anything that you wish to say to me now?" "Yes, Mr. Manning. If I should die in Europe, have my body brought back to America and carried to the South—my own dear South, that I love so well—and bury me close to Grandpa, where I can sleep quietly in the cool shadow of old Lookout; and be sure, please be sure, to have my name carved just below Grandpa's, on his monument. I want that one marble to stand for us both." "I will. Is there nothing else?" "Thank you, my dear, good, kind friend. Nothing else." "Edna, promise me that you will take care of your precious life." "I will try, Mr. Manning." He looked down into her worn, weary face and sighed, then for the first time he took both her hands, kissed them and left her. Swiftly the steamer took its way seaward; through the Narrows, past the lighthouse; and the wind sang through the rigging, and the purple hills of Jersey faded from view, proving Neversink a misnomer. One by one the passengers went below and Edna and Felix were left on deck, with stars burning above, and blue waves bounding beneath them. As the cripple sat looking over the solemn, moaning ocean, awed by its brooding gloom, did he catch in the silvery starlight a second glimpse of the rose-colored veils, and snowy vittae, and purple-edged robes of the Parcae, spinning and singing as they followed the ship across the sobbing sea? He shivered, and clasping tightly the hand of his governess, said: "Edna, we shall never see the Neversink again." "God only knows, dear Felix. His will be done." "How silvery the echoes run— Thy will be done—Thy will be done." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.