Mr. Armstrong telegraphs to Mrs. Turner, who is still in occupation at
Nutsgrove, and the old place is dusted, swept, aired, and garnished.
One soft April day Addie comes home again, and walks heavily through
the familiar rooms, leaning on her husband's arm. Almost from the first
day he notices a change for the better in her appearance and manner;
her step gains firmness, her appetite improves; and one night, about a
week after their return, when she stands by the drawing-room window,
her face buried in a bunch of lilac-blossoms, there comes a radiance
to her eyes, an eager softness to her voice that thrills him with wild
hope.
"I'm glad we came home; aren't you, Tom?" she whispers, nestling close
to him. "Let us never go away again. I'm tired of wandering; and I
shall get well here, I know, without going to Madeira or Algiers. I
feel to-night that I should like to live. Things are coming back to me
again that I once loved--you amongst them, Tom. I am growing fond of
you again--oh, yes, life is coming to me with the summer, and even good
looks also! Look!" she cries gayly, pulling him to a glass and putting
her face close to his swarthy one. "Am I not almost pretty to-night?
You'd know me if you met me in the streets now, wouldn't you, Tom? Why,
I want only a little red in my cheeks, a few freckles on the bridge of
my nose, and some curliness in my fringe to be myself again--quite my
old self again!"
"You can do without the fringe, young lady," says Armstrong, who has
the old-fashioned male distaste for the modern style of hairdressing,
pushing back two or three lank locks from her forehead.
"No, no; I must have a fringe, a regular Skye-terrier one too; my face
looks so bald and hard without it. It's all that horrible cod-liver
oil that's coming out in my hair and making it so thin and straight! I
won't take any more of it, Tom; it's of no use trying to force me," she
adds, with a low soft laugh that comes to him like a strain of sweetest
music. "I'm going to get well without it--you'll see."
Later on that evening she startles him by alluding for the first time
to her sisters and brothers, quite casually too, as if the thought
of them had just struck her incidentally. She has been looking
over an old photographic album, and, stopping before one of her
sisters--Pauline--she says lightly--
"The others, Tom? They are doing well, aren't they--dear old Jo and
Polly and Bob and Hal and Lottchen?"
"Yes, yes, love," he answers eagerly. "They are all doing well, every
one of them."
"I should like to see them again," she says, after a pause--"to see
them all together sitting here around me as in the old days. Will you
ask them to come, Tom?"
"Yes, if you think you feel quite--quite rested enough, dear, after
your journey," he answers reluctantly.
So they all come in haste and trembling, Lady Saunderson giving up two
important appointments with Worth, traveling up from London with her
elder brother, who seems paralyzed by the news that he had heard so
unexpectedly.
Armstrong interviews them first, and in a few stern impressive words
gives them the outline of their sister's story, and warns them against
exciting her with ill-timed emotion in her critical state.
So with smiling faces and cheerful words they welcome her back as
if she has been on a pleasant trip. There are no passionate tears,
no hysterical kisses, no entreaties for forgiveness, no remorseful
appeals. The meeting which Armstrong has been dreading opens and closes
in sunshine, and Addie, propped up with cushions, greets them with
glistening unresentful glance and gentle loving words.
"How well they look! Don't they, Tom?" she cries, turning a beaming
face to her husband, against whose shoulder she is resting. "And, take
them all in all, what a good-looking family they are to be sure! Why,
Lottie, what an immense girl you have grown! And you've got all the
doubtful bloom of my teens, roses, flesh, and freckles--all. I don't
suppose it would become me to call you pretty, would it? Polly, what
a swell you are--just like pictures from _Le Follet_. But your face
hasn't changed much. Bob, I won't believe that mustache is genuine
until I pull it. Come over here, sir, and face the light at once! What!
You are afraid? I thought so," she adds with a gay laugh, as the boy
turns away swiftly to hide the burning tears he can not keep from his
eyes.
They sit together all the afternoon, chatting merrily, recalling old
family jokes, making plans for the future; and, when tea is brought
in, Addie insists on pouring it out, her husband's large hand covering
hers and guiding the spout to the tea-pot. She makes them all drink
her health, declares she has never felt so well and happy in her
life, and sends a loving message to poor Aunt Jo, who is laid up with
rheumatic fever, which Lottie promises to deliver without fail. Then
she makes engagements to spend a week with Bob at Aldershot during the
maneuvers, to visit Hal at the Naval College, to stop a month at the
Park with Pauline, and to take Lottie for a trip abroad during the
holidays. Toward evening she seems a little tired; so, at a signal from
Armstrong, the family withdraw by degrees, and she sinks into a light
doze, from which she awakes with an uneasy start.
"Tom, Tom, where are you?"
"Here, here, where I always am--by your--side, sweetheart."
"They have all gone?"
"Yes, for the present."
She raises herself up, puts her warm arms round his neck, and whispers--
"And now only you--only you to the end!"
Seeing the spasm of pain that crosses his dark face, she turns the sob
into a laugh, and, taking a pink anemone from a glass on the table,
begins to fray it childishly.
"'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, plowboy, apothecary--'
Apothecary! Oh, you stupid, empty-headed flower--much you know about
it! I wish I had a daisy--a big milky-petaled daisy; they always tell
the truth--always."
"What did they tell you, love?"
"That I was to marry a gentleman, Tom--a gentleman. I consulted them
every day nearly for three weeks before I married you, and they always
gave me the same answer. If--if I were going to die--which I have not
the slightest intention of doing--I should ask you, Tom, to plant only
daisies on my grave."
"I think it would be more to the point," he answers lightly, "if I made
the request of you, considering that I am almost twenty years your
senior, and that I, not you, my dear, was the object of the pointed and
persistent compliment."
"Very well then," she says, laughing; "I'll plant your grave all with
big daisies, Tom Armstrong, gentleman, and I'll come and water them
every evening--when you're dead."
"'Ah, if you did, my own, my sweet,
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My dust would hear you and beat
Had I lain for a century dead--
Would start and tremble under your feet,
And blossom in purple and red!'"
"'My dust would hear you and beat had I lain for a century dead,'" she
repeats softly. "There is fiber as well as music in that idea; I like
it. 'Had I lain for a century dead'--the old tune of the immortality
of love, Tom, sung by poets and psalters since the world began. And so
you think your dusty old heart would feel me, your drumless ear would
hear me a century hence?" Then, after a pause, looking up into his face
with a twitching mouth that brings a dead dimple to life--"But suppose,
Tom--suppose my second husband carried the watering-pot--would your
dust blossom into purple and red then?"
"You little Goth! You soulless barbarian!" he exclaims, in mock
indignation. "Catch me ever dropping out of prose for your edification
again!"
"There--don't be cross; I'll always leave him at home when I come to
call on your poor ghost. Now are you satisfied?"
The stars come out, faintly studding the purple vault of heaven; a tiny
breeze sweeps the budding world, bringing to the sick girl the perfume
of a thousand flowers, telling her of the sweets and the joys, the
bloom of the coming summer, which she may never know.
"'Were it ever so airy a tread,
My dust would hear you and beat
Had I lain for a century dead,'"
she repeats softly; then, suddenly starting to her feet with a peevish
wailing cry--"Why do you talk to me of death--death, only death?
Oh, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I tell you! I can not
die now--it would be double death! I am so young, I have suffered
so"--sinking upon her knees and clasping her hands piteously--"not
yet, dear Heaven, ah, not yet! Give me this summer--this one summer;
it is all I ask! Tom, why don't you speak--why don't you look at me?
Ah, you have no hope--no hope! I saw it in their faces to-day; I see it
in yours every time you look at me. You know I'm doomed--you know I'm
doomed!"
"I know nothing, nothing," he answers, in a smothered voice, clasping
her to his breast and kissing the tears from her gray scared face,
"but that they say that the Almighty's power is great and His mercy
infinite."
"And I have one lung left, you know; I have one lung left!" she pleads
peevishly. "The doctors at the hospital told me that; and people have
been known to live for years with one lung, with great care and love.
And I have both--I have both! I ought to last the summer; it is so near
now; the roses are budding outside the window, the apple trees are
white with blossom--it is so near! Oh, Tom, my love, my life, keep me
with you this one summer, this one summer, please!"
* * * * *
She lives to see the summer, to see the tall daisies and sleepy
cowslips bow their scorched heads to the dust, and the roses drop leaf
by leaf from their thorny stem--lives to welcome the golden sheaves of
autumn; and, when the first bud shrivels in the grove, she is carried,
not to that quiet garden behind the church to lie beside her mother,
but to the balmy shores of Algiers, where summer meets her again and
lingers with her so kindly and helpfully that three years go by before
Tom Armstrong sets eyes on the tall chimneys of his native town again.
* * * * *
One bright July day two ladies are seated at the window of the old
drawing-room at Nutsgrove. One, old and massively spectacled, is busy
knitting a diminutive jersey; the other, with a pretty air of chronic
invalidism that Mrs. Wittiterly might have copied with effect, is lying
in an easy-chair, her white hands idle on her lap, watching a baby,
unwieldy and almost shapeless with the quantity of flesh his tender
age has to carry, playing with a kitten at her feet, pulling its tail,
turning back its ears, clasping it ecstatically to a fat heaving chest,
until at last, with one frantic wriggle and a smart little tap on the
chubby arm torturing it, the unfortunate brute gets free, and, with a
spring, clears the open window.
"Well done, puss, well done!" says Addie, laughing. "For the last ten
minutes I've been trying to summon up energy to come to your rescue,
but couldn't. Well done!"
For a moment the baby looks in utter silence from the thin red streak
on his arm to his mother's callous face; then, having taken in the
full measure of his grievance, he stiffens out his limbs, clinches his
fists, closes his eyes, opens his mouth until the corners almost reach
his ears, and gives vent to the most soul-piercing, stupendous roar
that has ever echoed through the walls of Nutsgrove within the memory
of a Lefroy.
The mighty volume electrifies the household, and brings servants and
friends from all quarters--brings Armstrong from his study, his face
pale with apprehension.
"What is it? He is killed--my boy?"
"No," pants Addie, "not quite. There is, I think, a little life left in
him still."
"But he has frightened, he has excited you, my love; you look quite
flushed. You must drink this glass of wine at once, Addie."
"He is gone?" asks Miss Darcy, cautiously withdrawing her fingers from
her tortured ears, and, turning to her host and hostess, exclaims
contemptuously--
"And that--that is the child you would have me believe is the offspring
of a woman with one lung! Adelaide, my niece, excuse plain speaking;
but it's my impression you're nothing more nor less than a humbug--an
arrant humbug!"
THE END.
ADVERTISEMENTS.
JAMES PYLE'S
[Illustration]
PEARLINE
THE BEST
Washing Compound
EVER INVENTED.
No Lady, Married or Single,
Rich or Poor, Housekeeping
or Boarding, will
be without it after testing
its utility.
Sold by all first-class
Grocers, but beware of
worthless imitations.
MUNRO'S PUBLICATIONS.
The Seaside Library
POCKET EDITION.
270 The Wandering Jew. BY EUGENE SUE. Parts I. and
II., each 20
279 Little Goldie. BY MRS. SUMNER HAYDEN 20
284 Doris. BY "THE DUCHESS" 10
286 Deldee; or, The Iron Hand. BY F. WARDEN 20
330 May Blossom; or, Between Two Loves. BY MARGARET
LEE 20
345 Madam. BY MRS. OLIPHANT 20
359 The Water-Witch. BY J. FENIMORE COOPER 20
362 The Bride of Lammermoor. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT 20
For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage
free, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents for
double numbers, by the publisher. Parties ordering by mail will please
order by numbers.
GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher,
P. O. Box 3751. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street.
WHAT IS SAPOLIO?
It is a solid,
handsome cake
of scouring soap,
which has no
equal for all cleaning purposes except the laundry. To use it is to
value it.
What will Sapolio do? Why, it will clean paint, make oil-cloths
bright, and give the floors, tables and shelves a new appearance.
It will take the grease off the dishes and off the pots and pans.
You can scour the knives and forks with it, and make the tin things
shine brightly. The wash-basin, the bath-tub, even the greasy kitchen
sink, will be as clean as a new pin if you use =SAPOLIO=. One cake
will prove all we say. Be a clever little housekeeper and try it.
BEWARE OF IMITATIONS.
MUNRO'S PUBLICATIONS.
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.--POCKET EDITION.
[CONTINUED FROM FOURTH PAGE.]
NO. PRICE.
255 The Mystery. By Mrs. Henry Wood 15
256 Mr. Smith: A Part of His Life. By
L. B. Walford 15
257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Sergeant 10
258 Cousins. By L. B. Walford 20
259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A Sequel
to "The Count of Monte-Cristo,"
By Alexander Dumas 10
260 Proper Pride. By B. M. Croker 10
261 A Fair Maid. By F. W. Robinson 20
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. Part I.
By Alexander Dumas 20
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. Part II.
By Alexander Dumas 20
263 An Ishmaelite. By Miss M.E. Braddon 15
264 Piédouche. A French Detective. By
Fortuné Du Boisgobey 10
265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love Affairs
and Other Adventures. By
William Black 15
266 The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale for
a Land-Baby. By the Rev. Charles
Kingsley 10
267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls'
Conspiracy. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh
Miller 20
268 Lady Gay's Pride; or, The Miser's
Treasure. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh
Miller 20
269 Lancaster's Choice. By Mrs. Alex.
McVeigh Miller 20
270 The Wandering Jew. Part I. By Eugene
Sue 20
270 The Wandering Jew. Part II. By
Eugene Sue 20
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. By
Eugene Sue 20
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. By
Eugene Sue 20
272 The Little Savage. Captain Marryat 10
273 Love and Mirage: or, The Waiting on
an Island. By M. Betham Edwards 10
274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse,
Princess of Great Britain and Ireland.
Biographical Sketch and Letters 10
275 The Three Brides. Charlotte M. Yonge 10
276 Under the Lilies and Roses. By
Florence Marryat (Mrs. Francis Lean) 10
277 The Surgeon's Daughters. By Mrs.
Henry Wood. A Man of His Word.
By W. E. Norris 10
278 For Life and Love. By Alison 10
279 Little Goldie. Mrs. Sumner Hayden 20
280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of Society.
By Mrs. Forrester 10
281 The Squire's Legacy. By Mary Cecil
Hay 15
282 Donal Grant. By George MacDonald 15
283 The Sin of a Lifetime. By the author
of "Dora Thorne" 10
284 Doris. By "The Duchess" 10
285 The Gambler's Wife 20
286 Deldee; or, The Iron Hand. F. Warden 20
287 At War With Herself. By the author
of "Dora Thorne" 10
288 From Gloom to Sunlight. By the author
of "Dora Thorne" 10
289 John Bull's Neighbor in Her True
Light. By a "Brutal Saxon" 10
290 Nora's Love Test. By Mary Cecil Hay 20
291 Love's Warfare. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
292 A Golden Heart. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
293 The Shadow of a Sin. By the author
of "Dora Thorne" 10
294 Hilda. By the author of "Dora
Thorne" 10
295 A Woman's War. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
296 A Rose in Thorns. By the author
of "Dora Thorne" 10
297 Hilary's Folly. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
298 Mitchelhurst Place. By Margaret
Veley 10
299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride from
the Sea. By the author of "Dora
Thorne" 10
300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of Love.
By the author of "Dora Thorne" 10
301 Dark Days. By Hugh Conway 10
302 The Blatchford Bequest. By Hugh
Conway 10
303 Ingledew House, and More Bitter than
Death. By the author of "Dora
Thorne" 10
304 In Cupid's Net. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwendoline's
Dream. By the author of
"Dora Thorne" 10
306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for a Day.
By the author of "Dora Thorne" 10
307 Two Kisses, and Like No Other Love.
By the author of "Dora Thorne" 10
308 Beyond Pardon 20
309 The Pathfinder. By J. Fenimore
Cooper 20
310 The Prairie. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20
311 Two Years Before the Mast. By R.
H. Dana Jr. 20
312 A Week in Killarney. By "The
Duchess" 10
313 The Lover's Creed. By Mrs. Cashel
Hoey 15
314 Peril. By Jessie Fothergill 20
315 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited by
Miss M. E. Braddon 20
316 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline Rodney's
Secret. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh
Miller 20
317 By Mead and Stream. By Charles
Gibbon 20
[CONTINUED ON LAST PAGE OF COVER.]
THE CELEBRATED
SOHMER
GRAND, SQUARE AND UPRIGHT _PIANOS_.
FIRST PRIZE
DIPLOMA.
Centennial Exhibition,
1876; Montreal,
1881 and 1882.
The enviable position
Sohmer &
Co. hold among
American Piano
Manufacturers is
solely due to the
merits of their instruments.
[Illustration]
They are used
in Conservatories,
Schools and
Seminaries, on account
of their superior
tone and
unequaled durability.
The SOHMER
Piano is a special
favorite with the
leading musicians
and critics.
ARE AT PRESENT THE MOST POPULAR
AND PREFERRED BY THE LEADING ARTISTS.
SOHMER & CO., Manufacturers, No. 149 to 155 E. 14th Street, N. Y.
MUNRO'S PUBLICATIONS.
THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.--POCKET EDITION.
LATEST ISSUES:
372 Phyllis' Probation. By the author of
"His Wedded Wife" 10
373 Wing and Wing. J. Fenimore Cooper 20
374 The Dead Man's Secret; or, The Adventures
of a Medical Student. By
Dr. Jupiter Paeon 20
375 A Ride to Khiva. By Capt. Fred
Burnaby, of the Royal Horse Guards 20
376 The Crime of Christmas-Day. By the
author of "My Ducats and My Daughter" 10
377 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story of the
Scottish Reformation. By Mrs. Oliphant 20
378 Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. A
Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20
379 Home as Found. (Sequel to "Homeward
Bound.") By J. Fenimore
Cooper 20
380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted Knoll.
By J. Fenimore Cooper 20
381 The Red Cardinal. By Frances Elliot 10
382 Three Sisters; or, Sketches of a
Highly Original Family. By Elsa
D'Esterre-Keeling 10
383 Introduced to Society. By Hamilton
Aïdé 10
384 On Horseback Through Asia Minor.
By Capt. Fred Burnaby 20
385 The Headsman; or, The Abbaye des
Vignerons. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20
386 Led Astray; or, "La Petite Comtesse."
By Octave Feuillet 10
387 The Secret of the Cliffs. By Charlotte
French 20
388 Addie's Husband; or, Through Clouds
to Sunshine. By the author of
"Love or Lands?" 10
389 Ichabod. A Portrait. By Bertha
Thomas 10
The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to
any address, postage prepaid, by the publisher, on receipt of 12
cents for single numbers, 17 cents for special numbers, and 25 cents
for double numbers. Parties wishing the Pocket Edition of THE SEASIDE
LIBRARY must be careful to mention the _Pocket Edition_, otherwise
the Ordinary Edition will be sent. Address,
GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher,
P. O. Box 3751. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.