"Miss Eunice said something to me once. She said it made her glad to
think that I might be permitted to do some of the work for the Lord
which she would have been so glad to do. Does it seem presumptuous in
me to say it, Fidelia? I would not say it to any one but you," said
Jabez humbly; "and I owe everything to Miss Eunice."
"And what do I not owe to my Eunice?" said Fidelia to herself. To Jabez
she said--"Yes, I know it made her last days happy to feel that perhaps
she had helped you a little. And we must both honour her memory by
trying to do in the world what she would have loved to do. I only
wish--"
Fidelia did not put her wish into words for Jabez's hearing. It was
growing dark, and Mrs Stone's white cap at the porch door had been more
than once visible as a reminder that the dew was beginning to fall; and
they knew it was time to go into the house.
But Jabez had one thing more to say, over which he hesitated a moment.
"Fidelia, I want to say one thing more, if I may. It was Miss Eunice
that made me think more about it, so I hope you won't be vexed. You
haven't any brother, and I haven't any sister. Suppose we--adopt one
another," said Jabez, with a laugh which had the sound of a sob in it.
"Miss Eunice told me more than once, that if ever the time came when I
saw you in trouble I must help you, if I had a chance, for her sake."
"Oh, my Eunice!" cried Fidelia; and she held out her hand to the lad.
And then, to her amazement, he stooped and touched it with his lips
before he took it in his own.
There were not many words spoken after that. This was their real
parting. They met several times before Jabez went away; but it was this
half-hour under the apple-trees that Fidelia always remembered, when the
thought of Jabez came back to her, with all the other memories of these
last days at home. For these were "last days."
Fidelia came back again when her year at the seminary was ended. Mrs
Stone was still in the old brown house, which in most respects looked
just as it had looked when she came home the first time, to find Eunice
waiting for her. It was good to see her old friend standing to welcome
her at the gate, but her old friend was not Eunice. And, though she
wondered that it should be so, and grieved over it, the house in which
the greater part of her life had been passed never seemed quite like
home again.