THE BROTHER'S RETURN.
My soul is faint beneath its unshed tears;
The earth seems desolate amid its flowers;
Oh, better far wild hope and racking fears,
Than all this leaden weight of weary hours.
Miss Landon says, in one of her exquisite novels, that the history of a
book--the feelings, sufferings, and experience of its author--would, if
truly revealed, be often more touching, more romantic, and full of
interest, than the book itself. Alas, alas, how true this is with me!
How mournful would be the history of these pages, could I write of that
solemn under-current of grief that has swept through my heart, while
each word has fallen, as it were, mechanically from my pen. I have
written in a dream; my mind has been at work while my soul dwelt wholly
with another. Between every sentence fear, and grief, and keen anxiety
have broken up, known only to myself, and leaving no imprint on the page
which my hand was tracing. My brother, my noble young brother, so good,
so strong, once so full of hopeful life! How many times have I said to
my heart, as each chapter was commenced, Will he live to see the end? By
his bedside I have written--with every sentence I have turned to see if
he slept, or was in pain. We had began to count his life by months then,
and as each period of mental toil came round, the wing of approaching
death fell more darkly over my page and over my heart. Reader, do you
know how we may live and suffer while the business of life goes
regularly on, giving no token of the tears that are silently shed?
Here, here! between this chapter and the last he died. The flowers we
laid upon his coffin are scarcely withered; the vibrations of the
passing bell have but just swept through the beautiful valley where we
laid him down to sleep. While I am yet standing bewildered and
grief-stricken in "the valley and shadow of death,"--for we followed
that loved one even to the brink of eternity, rendering him up to God
when we might go no further,--even there comes this cry from the outer
world, "Write--write!"
And I must write--my work, like his young life, must not be broken off
in the middle. Here, in the desolate room, where he was an object of so
much care, I must gather up the tangled thread of my story. There is
nothing to interrupt me now--no faint moan, no gentle and patient call
for water or for fruit. The couch is empty--the room silent; nothing is
here to interrupt thought save the swell of my own heart--the flow of my
own tears.
And she sat waiting for _her_ brother, that kind-hearted old
huckster-woman, waiting for him on that Thanksgiving night, with the
beautiful faith which will not yield up hope even when everything that
can reasonably inspire it has passed away.
The hired man had escorted the Irish girl on a visit to some "cousin
from her own country," and Robert was acting as charioteer to the Warren
family. Thus it happened that Mrs. Gray was left entirely alone in the
old farm-house.
The twilight deepened, but the good woman, lost in profound memories,
sat gazing in the fire, unconscious of the gathering darkness; even her
housewife thrift was forgotten, and she sat quiet and unconscious for
the time as it passed. There stood the table, still loaded with the
Thanksgiving supper--nothing had been removed--for Mrs. Gray had no idea
of more than one grand course at her festive board. Pies, puddings,
beef, fowl, everything came on at once, a perfect deluge of hospitality,
and thus everything remained. It was a feast in ruins. When her guests
went away, the good lady, partly from fatigue, partly from the rush of
thick-coming memories, forgot that the table was to be cleared. The
lonesome stillness suited her frame of mind, and thus she sat,
motionless and sorrowful, brooding amid the vestiges of her Thanksgiving
supper.
She was aroused from this unusual state of abstraction by a slight
noise among the dishes, and supposing that the slack old house cat had
broken bounds for once, she stamped her foot upon the hearth too gently
for much effect, and brushing the tears from her eyes, uttered a faint
"get out," as if that hospitable heart smote her for attempting to
deprive the cat of a reasonable share in the feast.
Still the noise continued, and added to it was the faint creaking of a
chair. She looked around, eagerly arose from her seat, and stood up
motionless, with her eyes bent on the table. A man sat in the vacant
chair--not the hired man--for his life he dared not have touched that
seat. The apartment was full of shadows, but through them all Mrs. Gray
could detect something in the outline of that tall figure that made her
heart beat fast. The face turned toward her was somewhat pale, and even
through the gloom she felt the flash of two dark eyes riveted upon her.
Mrs. Gray had no thought of robbers--what highwayman could be fancied
bold enough to seat himself in that chair? She had no fear of any kind,
still her stout limbs began to shake, and when she moved toward the
table it was with a wavering step. As she came opposite her brother's
chair the intruder leaned forward, threw his arms half across the table,
and bent his face toward her. That moment the hickory fire flashed up;
she rushed close to the table, seized both the large hands stretched
toward her, and cried out, "Jacob, brother Jacob--is that you?"
"Well, Sarah, I reckon it isn't anybody else!" said Jacob Strong,
holding his sister's hand with a firm grip, though she was trying to
shake his over the table with all her might. "You didn't expect me, I
suppose?"
It would not do; with all his eccentricity, the warm, rude love in Jacob
Strong's heart would force its way out. His voice broke; he suddenly
planted his elbows on the table, and covering his face with both hands,
sobbed aloud.
"Jacob, brother Jacob, now don't!" cried Mrs. Gray, coming round the
table, her buxom face glistening with tears. "I'm sure it seems as if I
should never feel like crying again. Why, Jacob, _is_ it you? I can't
seem to have a realizing sense of it yet."
Jacob arose, opened his large arms, and gathered the stout form of Mrs.
Gray to his bosom, as if she had been a child.
"Sarah, it is the same heart, with a great deal of love in it yet. Does
not that seem real?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Gray, in a soft, deep whisper, "yes, Jacob, that is
nat'ral, but I want to cry more than ever. It seems as if I couldn't
stop! I always kind of expected it, but now that you are here, it seems
as if I had got you right back from heaven."
Jacob Strong held his sister still closer to his bosom, and putting up
his hand, he attempted to smooth her hair with a sort of awkward caress,
probably an old habit of his boyhood, but his hand fell upon the muslin
and ribbons of her cap, and the touch smote him like a reproach. "Oh,
Sarah," he said, in a broken voice, "you have grown old. _Have_ I been
away so many years?"
"Never mind that now," answered Mrs. Gray, whose kindly heart was moved
by the sigh that seemed lifting her from the bosom of her brother. "I
have had trouble, and, sure enough, I have grown old, but it seems to me
as if I was never so happy as I am now."
Jacob tightened his embrace a moment, and then released his sister.
"Get a light, Sarah, let us look at each other."
Mrs. Gray took a brass candlestick from the mantel-piece and kindled a
light. Her face was paler than usual, and bathed with tears as she
turned it toward Jacob. For a time the two gazed on each other with a
look of intense interest; an expression of regretful sadness settled on
their features, and, without a word, Mrs. Gray sat down the light.
"Is it age, Sarah, or trouble, that has turned your hair so grey?" said
Jacob, a moment after, when both were seated at the hearth. He paused, a
choking sensation came in his throat, and he added with an effort,
"have I helped to do it? was it mourning because I went off and never
wrote?"
"No, no, do not think that," was the kind reply, "I always knew that
there must be some good reason for it; I always expected that you would
come back, and that we should grow old together."
"Then it was not trouble about me?"
"Nothing of the kind; I knew that you would never do anything really
wrong; something in my heart always told me that you were alive and
about some good work, what, I could not tell; but though I longed to see
you, and wondered often where you were, I was just as sure that all
would end right, and that you would come back safe, as if an angel from
heaven had told me so!"
"Yet I was doing wrong all the time, Sarah," answered Jacob, smitten to
the heart by the honest sisterly faith betrayed in Mrs. Gray's speech.
"It was cruel to leave you--cruel not to write. But it appeared to me as
if I had some excuse. You were settled in life--and so much older. It
did not seem as if you could care so much for me with a husband to think
of. I was a boy, you know, and could not realize that two full grown
married women really could care much about me."
"You knew when poor Eunice died?" answered Mrs. Gray. "You heard, I
suppose, that she was buried by her husband not three months after the
fever took him off; and about the baby?"
"No, no, I never heard of it, I was too full of other things. I did not
even know that your husband was gone, till a man up yonder called you
the Widow Gray, when I inquired if you lived here. The last news I heard
was years ago, when your husband left home and settled here on the
Island."
"He died that very year," answered Mrs. Gray, with a gentle fall of her
voice; "I have been alone ever since--all but little Robert."
"Little Robert--have you a child, then, Sarah? I did not know that!"
"No, it wasn't my child, poor Eunice left a boy behind her, the
dearest, little fellow. I wish you could have seen him when he first
came here, a nussing baby, not three months old, so feeble and helpless.
In his mother's sickness he hadn't been tended as children ought to be;
and he was the palest thinnest little creature. I wasn't much used to
babies, but somehow God teaches us a way when we have the will--and no
creature ever prayed for knowledge as I did. Sometimes when the little
thing fell to sleep, moaning in my arms, it sounded as if it must wake
up with its mother in heaven; but good nussing and new milk, warm from
the cow, soon brought out its roses and dimples. He grew, I never did
see a child grow like him, when he once took a start--and so
good-natured too!"
"But now--where is the boy now?" questioned Jacob.
"He was here this forenoon, almost a man grown. You have been away _so_
long, Jacob. He was here and ate his Thanksgiving dinner. A perfect
gentleman, too; I declare, I was almost ashamed to kiss him, he's grown
so."
"Then you have brought him up on the place?"
"No, Jacob, we never had a gentleman in our family that I ever heard on,
so I determined to make one of Robert."
"And how did you go to work?" questioned Jacob, with a grim smile, "I've
tried it myself; but we're a tough family to mould over; I never could
do more than make a tolerably honest man out of my share of the old
stock."
"Oh, Robert was naturally gifted," answered Mrs. Gray, with great
complacency.
"He did not get it from our side of the house, that's certain," muttered
Jacob; "the very gates on the old farm always swung awkwardly."
"But his father--he was an 'Otis,' you know--Robert looks a good deal
like his father, and took to his learning just as naturally as he did to
the new milk. He was born a gentleman. I remember Mr. Leicester said
these very words the first time he came here."
Jacob gave a start, and clenching his hand, said, only half letting out
his breath--"Who, who?"
"Mr. Leicester, the best friend Robert ever had. He used to come over to
the Island to board sometimes for weeks together, for there was deer in
the woods then, and fish in the ponds, enough to keep a sportsman busy
at least four months in the year. He took a great notion to Robert from
the first, and taught him almost everything--no school could have made
Robert what he is."
"And this man has had the teaching of my sister's child!" muttered
Jacob, shading his face with one hand. "Everywhere--everywhere, he
trails himself in my path."
Mrs. Gray looked at her brother very earnestly. "You are tired," she
said.
"No, I was listening. So this man, this Mr. Leicester--you like him
then? he has been good to you?"
Mrs. Gray hesitated, and bent her eyes upon the fire. "Good--yes he has
been good to us; as for liking him I ought to. I know how ungrateful it
is, but somehow, Jacob, I'll own it to you, I never did like Mr.
Leicester with my whole heart, I'm ashamed to look you in the face and
say this, but it's the living truth: perhaps it was his education, or
something."
"No, Sarah, it was your heart, your own upright heart, that stirred
within you. I have felt it a thousand times, struggled against it, been
ashamed of it, but an honest heart is always right. When it shrinks and
grows cold at the approach of a stranger, depend on it, that stranger
has some thing wrong about him. Never grieve or blush for this heart
warning. It is only the honest who feel it. Vile things do not tremble
as they touch each other."
"Why, Jacob, Jacob, you do not mean to say that it was right for me to
dislike Mr. Leicester--to dread his coming--to feel sometimes as if I
wanted to snatch Robert from his side and run off with him! I'm sure it
has been a great trouble to me, and I've prayed and prayed not to be so
ungrateful. Now you speak as if it was right all the time; but you don't
know all; you will blame me as I blame myself after I tell you it was
through Mr. Leicester that Robert got his situation with one of the
richest and greatest merchants in New York, and that he was paid a
salary from the first, though hundreds and hundreds of rich men's sons
would have jumped at the place without pay; now, Jacob, I'm sure you'll
think me an ungrateful creature."
"Ungrateful!" repeated Jacob with emphasis, "but no matter now; the time
has gone by when it would do good to talk all this over. But tell me,
Sarah, what studies did he seem most earnest that Robert should
understand? What books did they read together? What was the general
discourse?"
"I'm sure it's impossible for me to tell; they read all sorts of books,
some of 'em are on the swing shelf--you can look at 'em for yourself."
Jacob arose, and taking up a light, examined the books pointed out to
him, while his sister stood by, gazing alternately upon his face and the
volumes, as if some new and vague fear had all at once possessed her.
There was nothing in the volumes which Jacob beheld to excite
apprehension, even in the most rigid moralist. Some of the books were
elementary; the rest purely classical; a few were in French, but they
bore no taint of the loose morals or vicious philosophy which has
rendered the modern literature of France the shame of genius.
Jacob drew a deep breath, and replacing the light on the mantel-piece,
sat down. His feelings and suspicions were not in the least changed, but
the inspection of those books had baffled him. Mrs. Gray sat watching
him with great anxiety.
"There is nothing wrong in the books, is there?" she said, at length.
"No!" was the absent reply.
"You could tell, I suppose, for it seemed as if you were reading. It is
foreign language, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"And you can read it?"
"Yes!"
"But how--where did you get so much learning?"
Jacob did not hear her. He was lost in profound thought, striving to
search out some clue which would reveal the motives of that evil man for
the interest he had taken in Robert Otis.
"And these were all my nephew studied?" he said, at length, still
pondering upon what had been told him.
"No, not all. Those were the books; but then Mr. Leicester thought a
good deal of music and drawing, but most of all, writing. Hours and
hours he would spend over that. Every kind of writing, not coarse hand
and fine hand as you and I learned to write--but everything was given
him to copy. Old letters, names. I remember he practised one whole month
writing over different names from a great pile of letters that Mr.
Leicester brought for copies."
"Ha!" ejaculated Jacob Strong, now keenly interested, "so he was taught
to copy these names?"
"Yes, and he did it so beautifully, sometimes, you could not have known
one from the other. The more exactly alike he made them, the more Mr.
Leicester was pleased. I used to tell Robert to beat the copy if he
could, and some of the names were crabbed enough, but Mr. Leicester said
that wasn't the object."
"No, it wasn't the object," muttered Jacob, and now his eyes flashed,
for he had obtained the clue.
"One week, I remember," persisted Mrs. Gray, "he wrote and wrote, and
all the time on one name. I fairly got tired of the sight of it, and
Robert too; but Mr. Leicester said that he would never be a clerk
without perfect penmanship."
"And this one name, what was it?" inquired Jacob, with keen interest.
Mrs. Gray opened a stand drawer, and took out a copy-book filled with
loose scraps of paper.
Jacob examined the book and the scraps of paper separately and together.
Mrs. Gray was wrong when she said it was a single name only. In the
book, and on loose fragments were notes of hand, evidently imitated
from some genuine original, with checks on various city banks,
apparently drawn at random, and merely as a practice in penmanship; but
one bank was more frequently mentioned than the others, and this fact
Jacob treasured in his mind.
"This name," he said, touching a signature to one of these
papers--"whose is it?"
"Why it is the merchant that Robert is with," answered Mrs. Gray. "That
is the one he wrote over so often!"
"I thought so," said Jacob, dryly; and laying the copy-book down, he
seemed to cast it from his mind.
Mrs. Gray had become unfamiliar with the features of her relative, or
she would have seen that deep and stern feelings were busy within him;
but now she only thought him anxious and tired out with the excitement
of returning home after so many years of absence.
They sat together on the hearth, more silent than seemed natural to
persons thus united, when a footstep upon the crisp leaves brought a
smile to Mrs. Gray's face.
"I thought there was a sound of wheels," she said, eagerly. "It is
Robert come back from the ferry--how he will be surprised!"
"Not now!" said Jacob Strong. "I would rather not see him to-night--do
not tell him that I am here!"
"But he will stay all night!" pleaded Mrs. Gray, whose kind heart was
overflowing with the hope of presenting the youth to his uncle without
delay.
"So much the better; I can see something of him without being known.
Where does that door lead?"
"To a spare bed-room!"
"His bed-room?"
"No. Robert will sleep up stairs in his own chamber--he always does."
"Very well, I will take that room; say nothing of my return. When he is
in bed I will come out again."
"Dear me, how strange all this is--how can I keep still?--how can I
help telling him?" murmured the good woman, half following Jacob into
the dark bedroom; "I never kept a secret in my life. He will certainly
find me out."
"Hush!" said Jacob in an emphatic whisper, from the bed-room; "I will
lay down upon the bed--leave the door partly open--now take your seat
again where the light will fall on you both. Go--go!"
Mrs. Gray took her seat again, looking very awkward and
conscience-stricken. Robert came in flushed with his ride. It was a
sharp autumnal evening, and his drive home had been rapid; a brilliant
color lay in his cheeks, and the rich hair was blown about his forehead.
He flung off his sacque, and cast it down with the heavy whip he carried
in one hand.
"Well, aunt, I am back again--that old horse, like wine I have tasted,
grows stronger and brighter as he gets old."
"But where is he? the hired-man went away at dark," said Mrs. Gray,
anxious for the comfort of her horse.
"Never mind him. I put the blessed pony up myself. You should have heard
the old fellow whinney as I gave out his oats. He knew me again."
"Of course he did. I should like to see anything on the place forget
you, Robert; it wouldn't stay here long, I give my word for it."
"Oh, aunt, I would not have even a horse or dog sent from the old place
for a much greater sin--I know what it is!"
"But you never were sent off, Robert."
"No, aunt, but I went. Instead of superintending the place, and taking
the labor from your shoulders, who have no one else to depend on--I must
set up for a gentleman--see city life, aunt. I wish from the bottom of
my heart that I had never left you!"
"Why, Robert--what makes you wish this? or if you really are homesick,
why not come back again?"
"Come back again, aunt!" said the youth, with sudden and bitter
earnestness. "Is there any coming back in this life? When we are
changed, and places are changed--always ourselves most--how can a return
to one spot be called coming back?"
"But I am not changed--the place is just as it was," pleaded the kind
aunt.
"But I am changed, aunt--I can throw myself by your side, and lay my
head upon your lap as if I were a petted child still, but it would not
be natural--we could not force ourselves into believing it natural."
"How strangely you talk, Robert; to me you are a child yet."
"But to myself I am _not_ a child, I have thought, felt--yes, I have
suffered only as men think, feel and suffer. Oh, aunt, if I had never
lived with any one but you, how much better it would have been!"
The youth had cast himself on the hearth by his aunt, and rested his
beautiful head upon her knee. Tears--those warm bright tears that youth
alone can shed--filled his eyes without impairing their brightness.
The old lady pressed her hand upon his hair, and looked lovingly into
those brimming eyes. "And this comes of being a gentleman!" she
whispered, shaking her head with a gentle motion.
The youth gave a faint shudder, and turning his head so that his eyes
were buried in the folds of her dress, sobbed aloud.
"Why, Robert, Robert, what is this?--what trouble is upon you?"
"None, aunt--nothing. I am only in a fit of the blues just now. It makes
me home-sick to see you all alone here, that is all!" answered the
youth, lifting his face, and shaking back the curls from his forehead,
while he attempted one of his old careless smiles, but vainly enough.
The old lady was distressed. "Is it money, Robert?--have you been
extravagant? The salary is a very nice one; but if you want more
clothes, or anything, I wouldn't mind giving you twenty or thirty
dollars. There, now, will that do?"
Blessed old woman, she did not understand the half sad, half comic smile
that curled those young lips, and thinking, in her innocence, that she
had dived to the heart of his mystery, her own face beamed with
satisfaction.
"That is it; I see through it all now; come, how much shall it
be--twenty, thirty, forty? It's extravagant, I know, but this day, of
all others, I feel as if it would do me good to give somebody everything
I've got in the world; there, nephew, there--two tens--three fives--a
three, and, and--yes, I have it--here is a two. Now brighten up, and
next time don't be afraid to come and tell me; only, Robert, remember
the fate of the prodigal son--the husks, the tears--not that I wouldn't
kill the fatted calf--not that I wouldn't forgive you, Bob--I couldn't
help it; but it would break my heart. If I was to be called on for the
sacrifice, I couldn't eat a morsel of the animal, I'm sure. So you won't
be extravagant and spend the hard earnings of your old aunt, at any
rate, till after she's dead and gone."
The good woman had worked herself up to a state of almost ludicrous
sorrow with the future her fancy was coloring. Her hands shook as she
drew an old black pocket-book from some mysterious place in the folds of
her dress, and counting out the bank-notes as they were enumerated,
crowded them into Robert's hand.
The youth had altered very strangely while she was speaking. His face
was pale and red in alternate flashes; his lips quivered, and with a
convulsive movement he pressed his eyelids down, thus crushing back the
tears that swelled against them. Mrs. Gray attempted to press the
bank-notes upon him, but his hand was cold, and his fingers refused to
clasp the money. Drawing back with a faint struggle, he said, "No, no,
aunt, I do not want it! Indeed it would do me no good!"
"Do you no good! What! is it not money that you want?" cried the kind
woman. "Nonsense, nonsense, Robert; here, take it--take it. I wouldn't
mind ten dollars more--it does seem as if I was crazy, but then really I
would not mind it scarcely at all."
Robert was more composed now. The hot flushes had left his face very
pale, and with a look of firm resolve upon it.
"No, aunt, he said," gently putting back the money, "I will not take it.
The salary I receive ought to be enough for my support, and it shall;
besides, I tell you but the simple truth, that money would do me no good
whatever."
The old lady took up the crushed notes, smoothed them across her knee
with both hands, over and over, in a puzzled and dissatisfied way.
"What is it that you are worried about, if money will not answer?" she
said, at length.
"Nothing, aunt--why should you think it?" He spoke slowly and in a
wavering voice at first, then with a sort of reckless impetuosity he
broke into a laugh. It was not his old gleeful laugh, and Mrs. Gray only
looked startled by it.
"There, now, put up the old pocket-book, and give me a hearty good-night
kiss," he said hurriedly, "I shall be off in the morning before you are
up."
"Good night, Robert," said Mrs. Gray, with a meek and disappointed air.
"That kiss is the first one that ever fell heavily on your old aunt's
heart. You are keeping something back from me."
"No, aunt, no!" The words were uttered faintly, and Mrs. Gray felt that
the ardor of truth was not there. For a moment both were silent; Robert
had lighted a candle, and stood on the hearth looking hard into the
blaze; he turned his eyes slowly upon his aunt. She sat with one hand
upon the pocket-book, gazing into the fire. There was anxiety and doubt
in her features. Robert sighed heavily.
"Good night, aunt."
"Good night."
She listened to each slow footstep, as her nephew went up stairs. When
his chamber door closed, she buckled the strap around her pocket-book,
and dropped it with a deep sigh into its repository among her voluminous
skirts.
"I can't understand it," she murmured--"I can't make out what ails
him!"
All at once she remembered the presence of her brother, and her face
brightened up. "Jacob will know what it means. Jacob, Jacob!"
Mrs. Gray uttered the name of her brother in a whisper, but it brought
him forth at once.
"Well Jacob, you have seen him--you have heard him talk. Isn't he
something worth loving?"
"He is worth loving and worth saving too," answered Jacob. "Sarah, I do
not think anything on earth could make my heart beat as the sight of
that boy did."
"He is in trouble, you see that, Jacob, and would not take money! What
can it mean?"
"I saw all--heard all. His nature is noble--his will strong--have no
fear. He needs a firmer hand than yours, Sarah; I will take care of
him."
"I did not give a hint about you."
"That was right. It is best that he shouldn't know about me, at any
rate, jest now."
"But I should so like to tell him!" said Mrs. Gray.
"And you shall in time, but not yet. I must know more and see more
first."
"Well, you ought to know best," answered the sister, in a tone of gentle
submission. "I'm sure he puzzles me!"
"Now," said Jacob, seating himself, "let us leave the boy to his rest. I
wish to talk with you about old times--about the people Down East."
"It is a good while since I was in Maine, Jacob; I've almost forgotten
all about the folks."
"But there was one family that you will remember. Old Mr. Wilcox's, I
want to hear about him."
There was something constrained and unnatural in Jacob's manner; he had
evidently forced himself to appear calm when every word was sharpened
with anxiety.
Mrs. Gray shook her head; Jacob's heart fell as he saw the motion.
"Nothing--can you tell me nothing?" he said, with an expression of deep
anguish. "Oh, Sarah, try, try! you do not know how much happiness a word
from you would bring!"
"If I could but speak it," said Mrs. Gray, "how glad I should be. Mr.
Wilcox sold out and left Maine about the time we moved on to the Island;
where he went, no one ever heard. It was a very strange thing, everybody
thought so at the time; but that story about his daughter set people
a-talking, and I suppose he couldn't bear it."
Jacob uttered a faint groan--her words had taken the last hope from his
heart. "And this is all you know, Sarah?"
"It is all anybody knows of old Mr. Wilcox or his family. As for his
daughter--let me think, that was just before you left the old gentleman;
nobody ever heard of her either. What is the matter, are you going away,
Jacob?"
"Yes, I will talk over these things another time. Good night, Sarah. I
will just throw myself on the bed till daybreak."
"But you are not going away to live?"
"Yes; but you will see me every now and then; I shall stay near you--in
the city, may be."
"Why not here? I have enough for us both, and we two are all that is
left, almost. It seems kind of hard for you to leave me so soon."
"Not now, Sarah, by and by we will settle down and grow old together;
but the time has not come yet."
"I forgot to ask, are you married, Jacob?"
"Married!" answered Jacob Strong, and a grim, hard smile crept over his
lips. "No, I was never married. Good night, Sarah."
"There, now, I suppose I've been inquisitive, and worried him," thought
Mrs. Gray, as the bed-room door closed upon her brother. "What a
Thanksgiving it has been? Who would have thought this morning that _he_
would sleep under my roof to-night and Robert close by, without knowing
a word of it? Well, faith is a beautiful thing after all--I was certain
that he would come back alive, and sure enough he has!"
Thus Mrs. Gray ruminated, unconscious of the lapse of time, till a sense
of fatigue crept over her. Still she was keenly wakeful, for, unused to
excitement of any kind, the agitation that crowded upon her that day
forbade all inclination to sleep. There was a large moreen couch in the
room, and as the night wore on she lay down upon it, still thoughtful
and oppressed with the weight of her over-wrought feelings. Thus she lay
till the candle burned out, and there was no light in the room save that
which came from a bed of embers and the rays of a waning moon, half
exhausted in the maple boughs.
A sleepy sensation was at length conquering the excitement that had kept
her so long watchful, when she was aroused by the soft tread of a foot
upon the stairs. Quietly, and with frequent pauses, it came downward;
the door opened, and Mrs. Gray saw her nephew, in his night clothes, and
barefooted, glide across the room. He went directly to an old-fashioned
work-stand near the bed-room door, and opened one of the drawers. Then
followed a faint rustle of papers, and he stole back again softly, and
with something in his hand.
It was strange that Mrs. Gray did not speak, but some unaccountable
feeling kept her silent, and after she heard him cautiously enter his
room again, the reflection that there was nothing but his own little
property in the stand, tranquilized her. "He wanted something from the
drawer, and so came down softly, that I might not be disturbed," she
thought.
Thus the kind lady reassured herself, and with these gentle thoughts in
her mind she fell asleep.
Mrs. Gray awoke early in the morning, and softly entered the spare
bed-room. It was empty. No vestige of her brother's visit remained. Like
a ghost he came, like a ghost he had departed. She went up stairs--the
nephew was gone. Some time during that day she happened to think of his
visit to the work-stand. It was only the old copy book that he had
taken.