The resumption of cordially affectionate relations between Judge Kent
and his daughter was marked on her part by increased tenderness and
deference, on his by demonstrative caresses particularly conspicuous
after years of alienation. His exactions upon her time became despotic;
he was dissatisfied when she was out of his sight, and if within reach
his hand usually rested on her arm or shoulder. The paramount aim of her
life was attained. She was assured that she reigned supreme in her
coveted kingdom--his heart. Freed from dread of public exposure, his
spirits rebounded, and his jovial, self-indulgent nature enjoyed basking
once more before the fire of financial prosperity, exulted in the
consciousness that at last the long desired Maurice fortune was at his
command. Eglah wondered that from the hour he met her in Philadelphia he
asked no questions concerning her bridal journey--no explanation of her
unexpectedly hurried return.
He sedulously avoided all mention of Mr. Herriott, except to rail at the
imbecility of Arctic explorers, and suspecting that he smarted from the
humiliating knowledge that his son-in-law had possessed proofs of his
guilt, she welcomed silence as balm for her sore heart. From the day of
her return to Nutwood she severed every social tie linking her with
Y----. Of visiting she made an end, all invitations were declined, and
she was seen only at church, beside her father. They rode, drove, walked
together. On his fishing jaunts she read while he wandered from pool to
pool, and made tea for him when, tired and thirsty, he came back to a
shaded spot where she waited. Now and then a few of his friends spent an
evening in the billiard room, or played cards in the library, and
discussed Republican policies. At night Eliza Mitchell usually brought
her sewing to the table, Judge Kent smoked in his easy chair, and Eglah
arranged the chessboard at his elbow, or read aloud from some volume he
had selected. It rarely happened that she received his good-night kiss
until she had played a _nocturne_ or an _etude_ for which he asked. He
had an ardent, sensuous love of beauty in color, form, sound;
impassioned poetry, deep, rich melody, and subtle harmonies entranced
him, dimmed his fine, eloquent eyes. His musical taste had been
cultivated in accordance with classical standards, and while his
daughter's proficiency was not extraordinary, she played skilfully and
with a tenderly magnetic touch that justified his compliment: "My
daughter has tears in her pretty fingers."
When a proud, reticent, beautiful woman suddenly takes an unusual and
totally unexpected step, abrogating fashionable conventions--when,
keeping her own counsel, she disdains explanation and shuts herself away
from curious questioners--the hounds of gossip are unleashed, and
beagles and fox-terriers follow in full cry. Outraged Y---- hummed like
a swarming hive.
"Married without a sign of a trousseau, on a few hours' notice, with
barely time to get a license, a ring and a minister, and to pack her
trunk! Disgraceful!"
Rumors of Mr. Herriott's wealth swelled to fabulous proportions. A
sister of Dr. Burbridge, whose young cousin was employed in the office
of the telegraph company, plied him with questions, until indiscreetly
and reluctantly he confided to her that two telegrams sent by the groom
showed that he had not come to Y---- intending marriage; whereupon she
set afloat information which merely increased the complexity of the
problem. Judge Kent had been so long the community scapegoat that in the
final public solution and adjustment of disreputable responsibility, an
additional load of selfish, wily iniquity was laid on his sin-stained
shoulders. By cunning chicanery he had forced his daughter's sudden
marriage, hoping that Arctic dangers, often fatal, would soon make her a
widow dowered with millions.
Even the few who witnessed the ceremony, and recalled Eglah's
inscrutable white face, understood as little as the resentful uninvited,
yet when questioned they loyally maintained reserve.
Bishop Vivian, Mr. Whitfield, and the Egglestons warmly defended the
girl, whom secretly they pitied, but society pilloried her.
"She was shamelessly mercenary, absolutely devoid of womanly delicacy,
and a shocking disgrace to her poor mother's family."
Henceforth the anti-Kent social element in Y---- resolved itself into a
vigilance committee to watch her behavior as a married woman.
Into the whirlpool of tittle-tattle Mrs. Mitchell wisely abstained from
plunging. Her own information was too meagre, her uneasiness concerning
Eglah's stubborn silence and inexplicable manner too profound to admit
of discussion, even in defence. She staid at home, bided her time, and
held her peace. Moreover, she was wrestling with conscientious scruples
regarding her duty in withholding from Eglah some disquieting facts
known only to herself.
The second night after his daughter's departure, Judge Kent had indulged
in stimulants to an unprecedented and alarming extent. With a decanter
of brandy at his elbow, he dozed in his arm-chair until roused by Aaron,
who delivered a telegram. Eliza was going upstairs to her own room, when
the boy rang the bell and handed in the message.
"Lock up the house, Aaron. I think the judge is sleepy and will soon go
to bed."
An hour later she sat reading her Bible, and heard a sound as of some
heavy object falling. Snatching her lamp, she went swiftly to the
library. The overturned decanter was slowly emptying itself on the
table, and Judge Kent lay on the floor, his head resting against the
cushioned seat of his chair. Evidently he had risen, slipped on the
polished floor, dropped the decanter, and lost consciousness.
His face was purple, his breathing stertorous. Holding his head, she
pushed the chair back and laid him flat on the floor.
Was it apoplectic seizure or intoxication? Her inexperience justified no
independent action, yet if drunkenness explained existing conditions,
she shrank from publishing the disgrace that would mortally wound Eglah.
Bathing his head and face, she administered such restoratives as she
possessed, and loosened his vest and collar. Finally it seemed necessary
to summon Aaron and send Oliver for the doctor, but as she rose to ring
the bell Judge Kent opened his eyes. A dark, turbid red still stained
his face, but his respiration was less labored.
"Don't move. After a little I can get Oliver to help you into bed."
"I had a fall?"
His utterance was thick, his articulation indistinct, and he hiccoughed.
"Yes, sir. You are better, I think, and if you will only lie still a
while you can soon be made comfortable in your own room."
She went into the adjoining apartment, saw that the bed had been
prepared, and a lamp lighted. When she returned he had struggled into a
sitting posture, his arms clasped around his knees. She sat down and
waited. On the table lay the brandy-stained telegram sent by Mr.
Herriott after he had burned the papers at Carville. She picked it up,
read it twice, and laid it down.
"Mrs. Mitchell, if you will help me I can get into a chair."
She took his extended hands, and he rose slowly, staggered against her,
and sank into his chair. Five minutes later he slept, but gradually his
face resumed its usual color. Eliza brought a basin of water from the
bedroom, washed away the brandy streaks from the floor and table, and
with a silk handkerchief dried and polished the fine old mahogany,
already whitening from its alcoholic bath. She went to an open window
and waited. The night was balmy, and loitering, thievish puffs of air
came laden with rifled sweetness from multitudinous lips of forest and
garden bloom. Far away the muffled monody of the river falls rose
towards the stars, whose light wove a golden braid across the water's
quivering crystal plunge over granite crags. In the dense shadow of the
walnut grove a squirrel barked, and from their red cedar covert the game
cocks shrilled midnight.
After two hours Judge Kent awoke and groaned. Mrs. Mitchell handed him a
goblet of iced water, which he drained.
"Shall I go and rouse Oliver, or would you prefer Aaron to assist you?"
"I don't want either. If you will help me over this infernally slippery
floor to my bedroom sofa, I can manage."
"You do not wish the doctor sent for?"
"No."
She took his arm, guided his unsteady steps to the sofa, arranged a
pillow, and unlaced his shoes. Very soon his deep, regular breathing
assured her the worst had passed. Was it the brandy, or the telegram or
both? What were the "Ely Twiggs" papers, of which Eglah must know
nothing, and why was she coming home immediately, instead of going to
Sydney, or at least as far as Boston? Could Mr. Herriott have been a
party to some scheme whereby she was entrapped into that sudden
marriage?
At three o'clock she looked from the library door at the sleeping form
on the sofa, and with anxiety allayed, went upstairs to her room.
Awaiting a cue, she made no inquiries when he appeared at late
breakfast, and with characteristic aplomb his only reference to the
previous evening was an apology for troubling her to give him a third
cup of tea.
"My head is a trifle shaky from the jar of that fall. Men of my age and
weight can not afford to sit down so heavily on bare boards, and I shall
insist on matting when the carpets are taken up."
The receipt of the telegram requesting him to meet his daughter in
Philadelphia was followed by hurried preparations for departure, and
Mrs. Mitchell ventured to expostulate.
"Judge Kent, if you realized how serious was your attack in the library,
you would not risk the imprudence of a railway journey. You ought to see
your doctor. Let me go and meet Eglah in Philadelphia."
His bloodshot eyes twinkled as they met hers.
"Doctor? Absurd! Attack? You mean that unlucky slip? It amounts to
nothing except a stubborn stiffness on the side where I struck those
diabolical sand-scoured boards. I particularly desire the matter should
not be mentioned to my daughter, who would reproach herself severely for
that 'dry-rubbed' floor she knows I detest as a cat does swimming."
During his absence a cabinet maker was summoned and removed the ugly
grey stains on Eglah's favorite piece of old claw-footed mahogany. For a
time the incident seemed forgotten by all save the quiet, silent woman
keeping watch for the consequences.
A few days after Eglah's return she sat at a window in her bedroom,
noting the deepening glory of the west, where the sun was just sinking
behind purple hills. It was the date on which the "Ahvungah" would leave
Sydney and begin her voyage to the world of eternal ice.
The day had seemed one of doom, as if set for a funeral, and the going
down of the sun brought other shadows--darker than the mists that would
soon swim under the stars. If Mr. Herriott had forgiven her she might
have gone to Cape Breton, could have been with him till the last moment.
Now he was upon the ocean, and only God knew the future that looked so
black, so spectral, so full of desolation.
Mrs. Mitchell opened the door and handed her a package.
"Dearie, the express messenger brought this, and I signed for you."
She went back to her own room and resumed her darning.
The parcel was addressed in Mr. Herriott's handwriting: "Mrs. Noel
Herriott. Care Hon. Allison Kent." A wave of color flowed over Eglah's
pale face as she looked at her new name, and felt assured his eyes had
gleamed with scorn as he penned it. A pass-book and check-book of a New
York bank, with note from the cashier, were the first objects that met
her eye, and were instantly thrown aside; then a square box, elaborately
sealed. When she removed the wrapping paper a red morocco case appeared,
and around it was tied a note without a personal address.
"Just before my father died he gave me two rings; one the
little gold band that hangs on my watch chain--my mother's
wedding ring. The other a stone he had given her on the day of
their betrothal. When he laid them in my hand, he said: 'Wear
one always. If you should ever marry, give the other, with my
blessing, to the woman who bears our name.' Because it was his
wish, I simply obey his injunction, and trust the ring sacred
from my mother's touch will grace the hand it was once my
fondest hope, my most ardent wish to claim. This should reach
you the day we leave Sydney. The sham is ended. Your freedom is
now complete. Do not hesitate to use it in any way that will
restore the happiness you so unwisely, so rashly imperilled. If
possible, your path in future shall be spared my shadow.
Good-bye.
"HERRIOTT."
The words stung like a scourge, and involuntarily she covered her face
with her hands. Time merely increased his bitterness; there was nothing
more for her to hope or expect. He intended perpetual separation.
Mechanically she lifted the ring from its velvet bed. It was a superb
diamond, marked on the inside of the gold band, "Fergus to Una." The
circle fitted only one finger, that wearing the wedding ring, and was
too broad to share it. She replaced the jewel in its case and closed it.
A little later, when Mrs. Mitchell came in, the stony, despairing face
of the girl startled her. She ran forward and took her in her arms.
"What is the matter? You have shut me out long enough; now I will know.
You have heard from Mr. Herriott?"
"Yes. He sent me a check-book for money on deposit and a ring that had
been his mother's."
"What are you breaking your heart over? O my baby, don't keep your
trouble from me! The dreadful night you went away you asked me not to
question you, but I must; I can't bear the sight of your dear face.
Nobody loves you as I do, and you know you can trust me."
Eglah was silent a moment, and Eliza felt her shiver.
"Yes, I am sure your love is the truest I shall ever possess, and I
trust you; but some things are like red coals, and you shrink from
handling them. Suppose you had wounded your Robert so deeply, so sorely
he never forgave you, would you wish to drag the horror up and talk of
the details? Put yourself in my place."
"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he
would forgive anything you might have done."
"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the
mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will
never forgive me."
"I refuse to believe you wronged him."
"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I
realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to
say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my
heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you
will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave
me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea--gone on his long voyage. O
Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to God that he may never come home! Or that if he
lives, I may die soon."
"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?"
"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago
they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find
it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare,
awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault
was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even nobler than you
know, nobler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and
now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I
alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be
spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling
me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish
to be alone until breakfast."
When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side
garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and,
having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room
next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her.
The cold, passionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital
struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew
her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender.
As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father
fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with
a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr.
Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled
in Y---- during the dismal days of carpet bag rule.
He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and
ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having
secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete
seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the
tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic
drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was
alluringly accessible at the hotel.
When the season closed, he and Eglah decided to stop _en route_ for a
day, to pay their long promised visit to Calvary House.
As Mrs. Mitchell could not be persuaded to enter "an Episcopal monkish
institution" of which she disapproved so vigorously, she went back alone
to Nutwood and busied herself with household preparations for winter.
When the judge and his daughter reached home, Dr. Plympton expressed
himself much pleased with improved conditions which Mrs. Mitchell could
not discover, and Eglah's apprehensions were allayed. Her father's
increasing dependence upon her touched and cheered her inexpressibly,
and for his sake she diligently assisted him in work that forced her
thoughts into a new channel. An important appropriation bill, in which
Judge Kent's native State was much interested, would be presented to
Congress about the middle of December, or soon after the holiday recess,
and he had been requested by old friends and constituents to address the
Senate committee, advocating a favorable report. The collection and
arrangement of necessary statistics kept her busy at his side, and when
the last type-written page was added to the pile at his elbow, he patted
her hand fondly and complimented her useful accuracy.
Rejoicing in the accomplishment of their tedious task, the trap was
ordered, and father and daughter drove until the dinner hour.
She noticed he dozed twice while she talked, although when they reached
home he seemed as well as usual, humming a gay little Sicilian song as
he divested himself of overcoat and muffler. It had been a perfect
autumn day, crisp, crystalline. The deep, vivid yellow of the great
undulating mass of walnut foliage hung against the western sky like
cloth of gold curtains around a porphyry shrine, above which Venus
burned as ministering taper. With her cheek pressed to the window pane
in the library, Eglah watched the fading after-glow, and her hands
clutched each other. This was the day when from the iron-bound,
ice-sheathed fiords of Smith's Sound the sun disappeared. The long Polar
night had set in. Would Mr. Herriott ever see the sun again?
She had procured all books written in English that related to Arctic
travel, and in the sanctuary of her own room prepared, from an almanac
and from explorer's diaries, a calendar, noting the length of each day,
the coming of the moon, the date of shortest twilight, the falling of
total darkness. Mr. Herriott's voyage began in May; no tidings had
reached her. She expected none, but her lips moved: "Oh, God, keep him
in safety through the awful night!"
The dreary vision of her imagination contrasted sharply with the
luxurious aspect of the library, where a fire of oak logs glowed beyond
the marble hearth. A crimson velvet carpet covered the floor, and warm
winter draperies enhanced the atmosphere of comfort. On the table an
oval cut-glass basket held great clusters of orange chrysanthemums; not
the huge, solitary, odorless globes now so popular in cities, but
thickly studded, fragrant branches that bloom nowhere with such lavish
sweetness as in old Southern gardens.
Mrs. Mitchell brightened the lamp and began to match the squares of a
calico "rising sun" quilt she was making as her Christmas present to the
Methodist parsonage. Judge Kent leaned back in his arm-chair, his
silver-powdered head on the red cushion, good looking, debonair,
thoroughly content; and in one hand he held a richly gilded liqueur
glass, brimming with an emerald cordial. Eglah came to his side and put
her hand on his wrist.
"Father, Dr. Plympton forbids liqueurs. Please do not drink that."
"Only a thimbleful of _creme de menthe_! Babies take mint tea. Even Mrs.
Mitchell drinks this."
His fine eyes sparkled mischievously, and he bowed to her.
"No, sir. I make my mint cordial from my own garden, and I know what is
in it; but you can't be sure about foreign-fangled mixtures."
"I wish to make sure that delicious gumbo-file will not give me
nightmare."
"Father, I begged you not to touch it, and you had your favorite clam
bouillon the doctor commends so highly."
"Bouillon--gumbo-file? 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto
wine.' My duchess, don't scold. Your pretty mouth was made for sweeter
uses. Kiss me."
He brushed his white mustache aside, and leaning down she pressed her
lips to his.
"Father, are you quite well to-night?"
"Quite well, and absolutely happy. Now, give me some music to round out
and seal this glorious, perfect day."
She opened the upright piano, and while she played one of his favorite
fugues--Handel's in E minor--he kept time, swinging the tiny, gilded
glass. Flickering flames in the wide chimney were reflected on the
polished rosewood panels of the piano, and as they wavered up and down
before her, Eglah thought of spectral auroral fringes flashing in
moonless Polar night, staining with prismatic hues the world of snow,
kindling red beacons on pinnacles of immemorial ice.
The fugue ended, and as her fingers left the keys a tinkling crash
caused her to turn her head.
The liqueur glass was shattered on the floor and Judge Kent lay
insensible in his chair.
Paralysis appeared so complete that for some days Doctors Plympton and
Eggleston entertained no hope; but the sufferer rallied surprisingly,
and while his utterance was not fully intelligible, and he never
regained the use of his lower limbs, he was often conscious.
Mrs. Mitchell and the physicians would have welcomed a passionate
outbreak of the silent grief that seemed to have frozen Eglah, as, calm
and dry-eyed, she ministered in the sick-room she rarely left. Two
faithful men assisted in nursing--one by day, one by night, because she
could not lift her father--and she slept on a cot beside him, or across
the foot of his bed. She administered all his medicine, fed him with her
own hands, caressed, and cheered him.
After a few weeks, though entirely helpless, he was able to be dressed
and lifted into a reclining rolling-chair, and when the weather
permitted she wheeled him around the sunny side of the long colonnade,
where he usually fell asleep. The speech arranged so carefully for the
Senate committee she read again critically, made a few corrections, and
forwarded it with a brief announcement of his illness to the friends who
had employed Judge Kent to prepare and deliver it in committee room.
Her stern self-repression discouraged conversation relative to the
sufferer, and she buoyed herself with no false hopes.
A ripple of compassion stirred Y----, and some who had criticized her
most severely for her haughty aloofness--some whose sole grievance was
her absolute devotion to an "unprincipled father"--left cards, words of
sympathy, and flowers for Mrs. Herriott. Except the doctors, she saw no
one but Mrs. Eggleston and Mr. Whitfield, who had lost his wife a few
months previous. Bishop Vivian had died during the summer, but her
father's rector came often. At times the sick man's clouded mind seemed
incapable of retaining any impression, but he never failed to respond to
music, and when his chair was rolled close to the piano and Eglah played
selections he loved best, it comforted her to watch the pleased,
contented expression of the placid, handsome old face so dear to her.
Noticing how wan and drawn the girl's lips were, the physicians urged
Mrs. Mitchell to persuade her to drive or walk.
"No. I will not lose sight of him for a moment. He is my all, and what
becomes of me makes no difference. I have but one wish now--to go with
him."
One bright, warm day, late in December, Judge Kent appeared surprisingly
better, though his articulation continued very indistinct, and his
daughter understood him best because she closely watched his lips. The
doctors had made their morning visit, and, wrapped in his dressing-gown,
the sick man asked to be rolled into sunshine.
Eglah tucked a lap robe carefully about the reclining form, and he
feebly lifted the one hand he could move, and pointed to the glass door.
"That way; not through library."
She unlocked and opened it, wheeling the chair out on the colonnade, and
some change in his countenance arrested her attention. Bending down, she
found tears on his cheeks.
"You opened this door the day Herriott came. Because you heard him tell
me about Keith, you married him. You burned the papers--you saved me."
"No, father; no!"
She fell on her knees and hid her face in his gown.
"You tried to keep me from knowing you heard Herriott, but I saw you.
You married him for my sake. My blessed child! When I am gone, I want
you to remember no other man ever had such a daughter. My Eglah----"
After a moment he sighed, and with great difficulty added slowly:
"My dear, kiss me, and always--always you must know--how precious
you--are, precious----"
She kissed him twice, dried his cheeks, and, as he turned his head on
the pillow and closed his eyes, she rolled him up and down the
colonnade, hoping that during his nap he would forget. He often slept
soundly in this way, soothed by the motion like a child in a carriage.
Was he laboring under some delusion of an enfeebled brain--did he dream?
Or was it possible he had actually seen her leave his room on her errand
of rescue?
A half hour later a veil of cloud drifted across the sun, a blast of
wind leaped out of the northwest, and, fearing a change of temperature,
she turned the chair toward the door and wheeled it inside.
Leaning tenderly over the sleeper, his quiet, cold, set face told her he
had gone to that bar of final trial where, in his Maker's infinite
mercy, only He who fashions and reads human hearts and sees entirely
around the circle of circumstances, can justly judge.
A low, long-drawn, quivering cry, as of some creature mortally stricken,
summoned Mrs. Mitchell, who found the girl huddled over the still form,
his grey head lifted to her breast.
Holding her solitary vigil that night beside him, her cheek laid on his
shoulder, her hand clasping his icy, interlocked fingers, she found a
solace which surprised her in the assurance that he had known the
significance of her sacrifice--that he loved her better in consequence
of all she had ventured and suffered in his behalf. Her supreme dread
had been his discovery of the cause of her marriage, but now and then
the scowling menace from which we cower, breaks in smiling, tender
benediction. To love, that prompts and sustains in crucial hours of
self-immolation, is occasionally added a transforming exaltation that
sublimates the unworthy object for whom the sacrifice is borne; and the
most pityingly merciful of all angels--Death--extinguishes life with one
hand, while the other smooths scars of character, levels unlovely
angles, lifts shadows of sin, and gives to memory that magic mantle
whose halo never fades.
With singular and unnatural calmness, Eglah had arranged the details of
the funeral service next day in her father's church. She telegraphed
Father Temple to meet her in Washington _en route_ to the North, and
asked Mr. Whitfield to go with her until her cousin joined her on the
train.
To lay her father to rest among his enemies in Y---- was unendurable;
she would take him to the cemetery in his native State, where his
parents and sisters slept, and erect a monument there in sight of his
constituents who had honored and loved him.
It had grown very cold; there was no fire in the long drawing-room,
where portraits of Maurices and Vivians stared imperiously down at the
alien lying motionless under the great cut-glass chandelier. Silent and
tearless the girl kept watch. The undertaker had mentioned the date to
be inscribed on the casket plate, and she recalled her Arctic calendar.
This was the solstice, the sunless midnight, the core of Polar winter.
To-morrow the sun would begin to climb back to Mr. Herriott, but the sun
of her life had set forever. A shudder shook her, and she nestled
closer, laying her lips against her father's throat. Eliza laid heavier
wraps around the stooping shoulders, placed a hot blanket under her
feet, and now and then kissed the girl's bowed head, but no words, no
sob, profaned the sacred silence.
When the body was carried to the chancel of the crowded church, she
walked alone, followed closely by the few who best understood her
isolation. Shrouded in black, she sat still and silent as her dead; and
some persons present who had cause for bitterness against
"reconstruction judiciary" forgot their wrongs in genuine pity for the
proud and lonely mourner.
Under a fragrant pall, woven of smilax and his favorite double white
violets, that covered the casket and fell to its handles, she bore him
away to the stony hills of New England.