University of Virginia Library

My Inheritance.

DE QUINCEY.

ANONYMOUS.

1. I.

MY great-uncle, Mr. Gerard Sunderland, was dead;
and I, his heir, Gerard Sunderland the second,
had just stepped upon the cars to go and take possession
of his estate in Woolwich, a pleasant little village
not far from the Connecticut River. He had been a
strange man in many respects, this dead great-uncle of
mine. In his early youth he was a diligent student, a
man of rare genius, devoting himself only to study.
He had traveled over many lands, and came back with
much learning, a polished, stately gentleman. He was
over thirty when he fell in love. I use advisedly this
hackneyed expression. It was with him a desperate,
unthinking plunge. He staked his all upon one throw.
With such a nature as his there could be no calling
back the heart—no after-growth of tenderness.

He loved, as such men oftenest do, a woman remarkable
for nothing beyond her peers, and yet he made
of her a goddess. She was sweet and blithesome rather
than very beautiful. She had little fondness for
study. She would rather gather roses than read poems,
and made pies oftener than periods. She was
very young too, scarcely half his own age; and yet,
to his fancy, she was the one stately and most perfect
lady, whom no woman could ever equal, whose name

no man's voice must ever utter without homage. He
approached her, I have been told, with a reverent humility
very wonderful in his proud nature, and perhaps
that kind of wooing was not the one best suited
to enchain her wayward fancy. At all events, his love
was not returned, and before many months pretty Amy
Mansfield, with her sweet brown eyes and her bonny
brown hair, became Mistress Amy Deane.

After this my uncle Gerard shunned the world. He
settled down at Woolwich, where his lady-love continued
to reside; and though his stately house and pleasant
grounds were the finest in the whole county—though
he was the best of neighbors, and his early grapes and
ripe peaches were freely sent to every sufferer who
chanced to fall sick in their season of bearing, he yet
avoided all society. He lived alone, with a housekeeper
as reserved as himself, a maid-of-all-work, and
a gardener.

My father, who was his favorite nephew, resided at
that time in New York, and was about marrying. He
tried vainly to persuade his uncle to remove to the
city, or at least to settle near him. The invariable
answer expressed a quiet but resolute preference for
Woolwich. When I was born, two years after, my
father wrote again, begging him to come to my christening,
and telling him that I was to be called for him
—Gerard Sunderland. I believe my mother, Heaven
bless her tender heart! had selected a lovely young
girl to stand sponsor by his side, hoping, with her
womanly tact, that so the lost Amy might be replaced,
and another smile make rainbows about his lonely life.
But in reply came the same quiet refusal to visit New
York, even for a day; and the letter also stated that

he had made his will, bequeathing to his infant grandnephew,
Gerard Sunderland, all his property.

I had only seen him twice. Twice, during my early
boyhood, I had been sent—rather with his permission
than by his request—to visit him at Woolwich. Once
my parents wished—because of my dear mother's
health, which was then delicate—to travel without the
care which taking me would have involved; the second
time New York was visited by an epidemic, before
which all fled who could. Business kept my
father in the city; and my mother, caring nothing for
life unless he might share it, determined to remain
with him; while, to ease her mother-heart of its anxiety,
I was sent again to Woolwich.

Sitting in the cars, while the quiet villages through
which we passed, the tall trees, and the very fences by
the wayside, seemed to fly from us with lightning
speed, I recalled those two visits. I had traveled then
by stage. The journey had been a very fatiguing one,
lasting from the gray of the early morning until ten at
night.

My welcome had been kind, but grave; and the
weeks I passed there had appeared strangely solitary
to a child accustomed to the restless bustle of New
York. It seemed to me almost as if I were in one of
the enchanted castles I had read of in my story-books,
where all the beautiful things would vanish if one
spoke above a whisper. But this very stillness had
not been without its own exceeding charm to my
childish imagination. It was happiness enough for
me to walk through the garden when the morning
dew trembled, tear-like, in the hearts of the blossoms;
to gather the magical roses, and see the gardener train

the climbing honey-suckle, so tall that I used to wonder
if there was a giant living in wicked state at the
top of it. It was best of all to watch the wonderful
panorama of sunset. It was to me—city born and
bred—as if the breath of God had created a new world;
had called to quick and beautiful life wonders of which
I had never heard or dreamed.

Uncle Gerard, too, was very good to me, in his own
stately way. He used to tell me wonderful stories of
the foreign countries he had visited, and sometimes to
show me paintings which he had made—for he was no
mean artist—of some of those far-off scenes.

There was one picture which hung in his study—
the only one there—and I had never seen it, for a crimson
curtain always hung before it. One day I boldly
asked him if he had painted it, and why I might not
see it, as I had seen the rest. A look which I could
not interpret passed over his face. His voice trembled,
but he was not angry.

“Surely,” he said; “why not? You shall see it,
Gerard.”

He drew away the curtain, and a woman's face was
there. Gentle brown eyes smiled on me; brown hair
of precisely the same hue rippled in waves over the
delicate shoulders; the mouth was arch and bright,
yet sweet, and looked as if it was just going to speak
to me. I was too much pleased to be demonstrative.
I think the tears even came to my eyes. They had a
trick of doing so in childhood whenever any thing appealed
strongly to my quick, æsthetic nature. I only
said,

“Oh, Uncle Gerard, I never saw any thing half so
beautiful!”

“You think so,” was the gentle answer; “but her
face was ten times fairer than any painter's art could
make it.”

With a long, perhaps unconscious sigh, he replaced
the curtain, and during my visit I never saw that face
again. But its memory returned to me vividly as I
rode on now toward Woolwich. How those far-off
childhood days came back, shedding their glamour
over my spirit—came back, with their strange radiance
of sunsets and sunrises, their wonderful fragrance
of flowers, their far hills and bright waters. I was
twenty-eight now. It had been eighteen years since I
last saw Uncle Gerard. I had not known him well
enough to have his loss come home to me as a real
sorrow; still a sort of tender, poetic melancholy invested
the memory of this solitary man, grown old
alone, clinging to a by-gone love which had never
known response; alone with his artist gifts, his genius,
his rare learning.

I had been too far away from home to be summoned
in time for his funeral, but my parents had gone;
and my mother told me, with tears in her eyes, how
death had seemed to still the long sorrow of his life—
to give back youth and hope to his worn face—and
how marvelously sweet was the still, dead smile
into which his lips were frozen. Absorbed in these
thoughts, I had not heeded the stopping of the cars or
the name of the station, and I roused myself with a
sudden start when the conductor, touching my arm,
said politely,

“I believe you wish to stop here. This is Woolwich,
sir.”

I got out. My memory of places was always extremely

tenacious. Much as Woolwich had in many
respects changed since I had visited it, I knew my
way at once to the house which was now mine. Leaving
my baggage at the station, I walked onward. Before
long I came to the spot where my uncle's grounds
—I had not learned to say my grounds as yet—commenced.
They lay on both sides of the road, or rather
drive—for it was not public property—leading up to
the mansion. The pine-trees on either side of the way
were not many years old when I saw them last, but
they had grown so tall now that their branches met
over my head, and, looking up through their greenery,
they seemed to lift their odorous boughs almost to the
sky. The drive itself flashed white, as if strewn with
snowy, glittering shells, in the summer sunshine. The
grass was fresh and green, with the long afternoon
shadows trailing over it. Soon I turned a corner, and
there before me was the house which the trees had till
now concealed—a stately, old-fashioned mansion, with
an upright three-story centre, and long, rambling wings
on each side. Around these wings, whose windows
opened to the ground, were pleasant verandas. A
flight of stone steps led up to the principal front entrance.
The whole place was tasteful, well-appointed,
beautifully kept, with a kind of hospitable face, which
roused in me a certain pride and joy of ownership, for
which I reproached myself the moment after.

I would have pushed open the door and gone in, but
it was fastened, and I was obliged to have recourse to
a ponderous knocker in the shape of a lion's head.
The old housekeeper of eighteen years before came to
the door. I had sundry grateful recollections of delicious
little pies and cakes with which she had surfeited

my boyhood. I was glad to see her kindly face
again. She had not changed much. Her figure was
hale and buxom as ever, though years had certainly
frosted her hair, which used to be thick and black. I
extended my hand:

“Ho do you do, Mrs. Tabitha?”

She did not answer at first; she seemed trying to
recollect me. Her face wore a puzzled expression
which presently cleared up.

“Belike you'll be our young master?”

“The same.”

“Well, I'm sure we'll be heartily glad to see you,
sir; only, if you'd just sent word you was coming,
we'd have been all ready for you, and Mike would
have gone after you with the carriage.”

I suppose it always remained a mystery to the good
old lady why I should have preferred walking quietly
over the road to my new possessions, rather than coming
to them with due honors, drawn in state by Uncle
Gerard's sleek gray horses. However, I soon managed
to put her on a right footing—to become the master
instead of the visitor—and in due time I was quietly
installed in my new home.

For the first day or two there was pleasure enough
in rambling about the grounds; but the third morning
was rainy, and I shut myself up in my uncle's
study. The picture hung there still. I felt almost
as if I were committing sacrilege when I drew away
the curtain, but I had a strong desire to see how faithfully
my memory had reproduced it. It was the same
face that I had carried with me all these years, only
there was a look of self-renunciation about it, a look
like a prayer, which I had not remembered; which I

was puzzled to reconcile, at first, with what I had been
told of Amy Mansfield's sunny, joyous nature; her
disposition to take every thing at its best—to live in
the present. My uncle must have painted her as she
had seemed to his imagination. All the lofty traits
with which his fancy had dowered her he had brought
out upon the canvas. But, even without that expression,
which seemed the look of a pitying angel, she
must have been very lovely. I could imagine how a
man might well have worshiped her, and asked her to
be nothing that she was not. I looked at her a long
time.

I was not romantic. I had been engaged in commerce,
and it had not been without its usual hardening
effect upon me. I must marry some time, I took
that for granted. I was equally resolved that the future
Mrs. Gerard Sunderland must be a lady of fortune
and position, and yet I could not help thinking, as I
gazed upon the picture, that I should like very much
to have her eyes look at me like those eyes of bonny
Amy Mansfield. And then I smiled at the thought
of getting so enthusiastic about a woman who must be
old and gray now, even if she were still living. And
here a curiosity—I wish I could dignify it by a worthier
name—took possession of me to learn her after
fate. All I had heard was that she became Amy
Deane and lived in Woolwich. Who was this “gude
mon” who was her husband—this successful rival of
my refined, stately great-uncle? Nothing would be
easier than to call Mrs. Tabitha and make the necessary
inquiries, but I had a sort of romantic wish to
find out in a different manner. It might be my uncle's
papers would tell her story. Nothing more likely

than for this man, reserved, yet painstaking and
patient, who had no human confidant, to write down
on paper such things as troubled the current of his
life. I began a studious search among the papers in
his desk.

I was not disappointed. In a compartment by itself
I found a book which had evidently been a sort of
journal. It was not dated, or kept with any attempt
at regularity. It seemed as if, when he could no longer
hush the cry of his soul, it had found vent there.

At first, however, it was joyous. He had just come
to Woolwich—he had seen her. The words which
dwelt upon her beauty seemed touched with flame.
To him she was not the pretty, light-hearted girl which
only she seemed to other eyes, but the elect woman,
crowned, to his thought, with all that there was on
earth of nobleness, purity, and religion—a woman such
as must have inspired the poets of those old classic
days when they wrote of goddesses.

His timid wooing was detailed there; the delicate,
poetical attentions by which he sought to make known
his homage; and, at last, he told in words, every one
of which seemed an embodied agony, how he had asked
her love and asked in vain. There was no reproach
coupled with her name. He seemed to think it nothing
strange that she had not been able to love one
who seemed to her youth so grave and old; his only
marvel was that he should ever have been presumptuous
enough to ask her. She had not fallen ever so
slightly from the pedestal on which he had placed her
—she was his goddess still.

A few pages farther on her betrothal was chronicled
to one Everhard Deane, the young rector of Woolwich—a

man, my uncle wrote, whom she could worthily
love—who, God grant, might love and cherish her
forever! Of her marriage there was nothing written,
but by-and-by there came a leaf from which it appeared
that he had been painting her portrait. It said,

“I have been to church to day. Everhard Deane
preached for the first time since his marriage. They
have returned from their short bridal tour. They are
living in the rectory. I knew I should see her at
church, but I could not stay away, though every moment
was torture. I went early. I took my seat
where, if she sat in the minister's pew, I could watch
every expression of her face, catch every inflection of
her voice. Soon they came in. She was leaning on
his arm, as I had once hoped, Heaven help me, she
would lean on mine. Love made her face radiant.
She had never seemed to me so beautiful as now, when
she had given herself forever to another. My portrait
does not do her justice. I must give to her eyes a
tenderer light; I must paint an added nobleness in the
still calm of her mouth. Did I covet her? If I did,
God will forgive me; God, who knows I would not
deprive her of one moment of happiness, even to make
her mine forever.

“Oh, how her low voice thrilled me as she joined in
the prayers! Can Everhard Deane love her as I do?
He seemed, indeed, very content, very proud, as who
might not be content with her? Well, I shall learn
calmness in time. It is something to have loved her
—to have dreamed, once in life, a happy dream.”

Then came other pages, sometimes with intervals of
years between them. Once he had seen her with her
first-born child in her arms, a noble boy.

Then that brave boy had died, and it was beautiful
to see how every sorrow that came nigh this Amy of
his love brought out the still, deep tenderness of Uncle
Gerard's nature.

There were many such sorrows. Five children, one
after another, she had followed to their quiet resting-places
in the church-yard, underneath the rectory windows—the
church-yard where, all summer long, suns
shone, winds blew, and birds sang above her darlings,
and round them, every spring-time, went on the new
birth of nature; the wondrous spring-time miracle of
earth's resurrection, typical of the mortal putting on
immortality—Nature's own seal to the divine promise,
“Thy dead shall live again.”

It seemed that, despite these many sorrows, the fair
Amy was very happy in her husband. Nor was her
middle age left desolate. The youngest of all her children,
her daughter Rachel, was spared to her; was
growing up by her mother's side, with her mother's
gentle voice, and eyes which were Amy's own.

The last page of all was stained with that stain which
from heart or paper can never be effaced—a strong
man's tears. Amy was dead. The grave had closed
upon that head, still brown and shining—that smile
which had never grown old to his loving eyes. She
had never been his, and yet, now she was gone, a light,
a music, a glory had been swept forever from earth
and life. Happy Everhard Deane! He has a right
to plant roses over her grave—a right to mourn her
—a blessed heritage for all his lifetime in the memory
that that dainty form has thrilled in his clasping
arms; those lips pressed upon his their first kisses—
uttered for him their last prayer. The grave has closed

over her. It wanted but this to make Uncle Gerard's
lone life lonelier. It was something to see her—to
watch, on Sundays and saint days, for the chance gleam
of her sad and tender smile, or the tremulous music of
her voice joining in prayer and psalm. Now he has
watched and listened for the last time—Amy is dead!
Happy Everhard Deane! He was beloved—therefore,
for him, all the beauty and glory of life are immortal.
Beyond the grave he can claim his bride, young and
fair again in heaven. For him fond arms are waiting
—for him one heart beats lonely, even in the light of
that day which hath no end, with longings for his coming;
but for Gerard Sunderland there must be solitude
—so whispers his despairing heart—even in heaven.

After this page all the leaves were blank. With
this record of sorrow, the journal of Uncle Gerard's
life came to a full stop. There was no date—I could
not tell how long ago it had been written; but I wondered
if that had not been his death-stroke—if, after this
great sorrow, his life had not begun to ebb.

That night, while Mrs. Tabitha poured my tea, I
took occasion to inquire who was the present rector
of Woolwich.

“Mr. Everhard Deane,” was the reply. “He's getting
an old man now, and since his wife died he seems
sadly broken; but we all like him, and as long as he
can say a prayer we would not change him away.”

“How long since his wife died?” was my next question.
The answer startled me.

“Just one year to a day before our dead master.
He never held up his head after her death. Some said
he took it harder than her husband. Belike you have
not heard the story, but the master loved Mistress

Deane when she was Amy Mansfield. They say she
was a pretty girl, and her eyes were wondrous sweet
and bright, but nobody else saw such great things in
her as your uncle. She said nay to his suit. Mr.
Deane was a younger man, and he had her heart. But
it darkened all Mr. Sunderland's life. He always seemed
to feel every trouble that came upon her as if it was
his own, and when she died he never got over it.”

The next day was Sunday, and I went early to
church, more anxious, I must confess, to see the husband
and child of this dead Amy than to join in the
service, which I had not then learned to love. That
morning I saw Rachel Deane for the first time.

The rector seemed a quiet yet deep-feeling old man,
bowed down by sorrow. There was something singularly
beautiful in his benign face, and in the pathos of
his low yet thrilling voice. His utterance charmed
my ear, it was so distinct and musical, despite the tremulousness
it had caught from age and sorrow. But I
did not hear his sermon. I was too much absorbed
in looking at the saintly face which was uplifted toward
him from the minister's pew.

Rachel Deane, at sixteen, was the very image of her
mother's portrait in my Uncle Gerard's study, save
that the expression of holiness, of self-renunciation, was
even deepened in her young face. She was, I could
see, all that my uncle's imagination had made of her
mother. Her voice—somehow I always notice voices
—was so clear that I could easily single out its low
tones whenever she joined in the service. Had I only
heard that, without looking upon her face, I could have
almost divined her character. I should have said that
it must be the utterance of a true, pure soul, strong to

do and to suffer; yet a cheerful, kindly soul, moreover,
carrying light and blessing with it every where.

It was not long before I made her acquaintance.
Mr. Deane came to call upon me, and, very naturally,
I returned his visit. I soon found that his daughter
possessed a vigorous, inquiring mind, already stored
with all the available contents of her father's library.
But these works, for the most part books of science,
history, and theology, had by no means satisfied her.
She had read a few volumes of poems, and one or two
of Scott's novels, which had been her mother's, and
these had opened to her vision the enchanted realm
of song and fiction, through which she longed to wander.
I had it in my power to gratify this longing.
Uncle Gerard's library, which had come down to me
with the rest of his possessions, was large and well selected.
Himself a poet, his shelves were rich in the
works of all the masters of song. I transferred volume
after volume to Rachel Deane's table. Her earnest
thanks, the glow of pleasure on her sweet young face,
were my reward. I was daily more and more astonished
at the rare, intuitive quickness of her intellect.
It stood her in good stead of rules and precedents, so
that I have seldom met with a finer critic.

I was a genuine book-lover myself. Even commerce
and business had not been able to wean me from poetry
and fiction, and it called back more than my early
enthusiasm to share the deep, quiet, yet sometimes rapturous
appreciation of this young girl. I often told
her she brought back my youth.

I know now that I loved her even then, but I never
acknowledged it to myself—I never thought of marrying
her. It was, as I have said, a fixed fact in my

mind, that the future Mrs. Gerard Sunderland was to
be a lady of wealth and position. I never dreamed of
finding her in the shy, quiet daughter of a village clergyman.
So I went on, with this future settled in my
thoughts, going to see Rachel daily, lending her books,
rambling with her over the fields, and learning to watch
for her smiles, and listen to the music of her voice,
with an interest for which I never tried to account.

I think she inherited her poetical tendencies from
her father. There was something very touching in
this old man's quiet, self-contained life. Every night,
all through the long summer sunsetting and twilight,
he would sit at his western window and look forth over
the church-yard, with its white tomb-stones bathed
in the sunset gold. I thought he was calling the past
days back again—sitting in fancy beside the Amy of
his youth and his love—that he saw not the green grave
where he had laid her, but was looking over and beyond
it, through the golden glory of the clouds, to a
far-off shore, where his eyes—none but his—could see
the gleam of a white brow, the fall of chestnut hair.

One night, when he had been sitting there a long
time, he turned away with a radiant look. Somewhat
of inspiration had chased the gray shadow from his
worn and aged face. Rachel and I sat together, in silence,
at the other end of the room, but he seemed unconscious
of a witness. His voice was clear and hopeful.
In a steadfast tone he said,

“I shall go to her, though she can not come to me.
Blessed be God—the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob!”

As he left the room I looked at Rachel. Through
the twilight I could see the tears shining in her eyes

“He loved her so faithfully,” she said, “so many
years; and now she is dead he loves her still. Oh, it
was worth living and worth dying for; I know my
mother thought so.”

I remembered afterward a suggestion which came
to me then—a wonder as to how she would love—this
young girl, so shy, so tender, yet, it seemed to me, so
faithful. I remember thinking how blessed the man
would be who should win her pure heart; but I never
thought of seeking this love, of which I believed her
nature capable, for the crown of my own life.

That was a long, bright summer. I had come to
Woolwich weary of the world, of fashion, of business,
of care. I had found there rest, pleasant companionship,
quiet. I was satisfied. I had scarcely perceived
that autumn was tinting the forest trees, ripening the
fruit in the orchard, the grain upon the hill, and sending
forth his lawless winds to gather up the spoil of
summer. I was too happy to heed the flight of time.
Rachel and Rachel's father were enough of society;
Mrs. Tabitha managed my housekeeping concerns admirably,
and I was content. But the spell was broken
one fine morning, late in October, by the receipt of a
letter from my only sister, Flora. She was two years
younger than I, and yet for seven years she had been
Mrs. Maxwell Grafton.

She was a brilliant and fashionable woman, but a
good sister notwithstanding, and, as the world goes, a
devoted wife. It had never ceased to be a mystery
how little Flora, the pet of my boyish days, could ever
have matured into this stately matron, so unlike my
gentle, retiring mother; and a stranger mystery still
now she, younger than myself, and a woman, had ever

acquired so much mastery over me, an independent
bachelor. The solution of this last half of the riddle
lay, I suspect, in three words—strength of will.

I remember wondering, as I broke the seal of her
stylish-looking letter, what she had marked out for me
to do, feeling a half-vexed consciousness that I should
obey her, though the purport of her missive should be
to dispatch me to the North Pole. Low be it spoken,
I have a horror of arguing with a woman. They will
talk so fast, they have such a feminine gift for making
the worse appear the better reason, that I would far
rather lay down my arms in despair than stand the
shock of such a volley of words. I suspect Flora had
found out this weak point, and grown tyrannical on
the strength of it.

The letter opened with an account of a brilliant summer.
I hurried over this, getting only a vague and
confused idea, which rung through my brain a dozen
changes on such formidable key-notes as “Saratoga,”
“Newport,” “splendid creature,” “pistols,” “despair.”
I hurried on to what more immediately concerned me.
I was a sad, provoking fellow to have buried myself
all summer in Woolwich. So she thought; so Maxwell
thought; so some one else thought, whose name
I didn't deserve to know. However, if I would come
at once to New York she would forgive me. I must
come—that was certain—I must be there in time for
her great party, which was coming off next week—
the first of the season. She had a friend to show me
—one who was just my ideal—elegant, stately, beautiful,
and very rich. Yes, she knew Anastasia St. John
would just suit me, but perhaps I wouldn't suit her;
she couldn't tell. Anastasia wasn't a woman to be

won without wooing. But there! she was busy; she
had wasted time enough on me; only I must come
next Monday.

It never entered into my head to disappoint her.
Perhaps the promised introduction had something to
do with my ready obedience. Anastasia St. John—I
liked the stately name. Flora's description pleased
me too. This was just the kind of woman I had always
meant to marry, and it was nearly time now—I
had passed my twenty-ninth birthday this very summer.
I commenced my preparations for leaving home.

That night — did I tell you it was Saturday?—I
went to bid Rachel good-by. I carried her a few
books which she had expressed a wish to read, and
offered her the use of my library during my absence.
Was I mistaken? It seemed to me that a look of
pain crossed her face when I spoke of leaving Woolwich.
I even thought there was a suspicious mistiness
in her eyes. The time came afterward when
memory reproduced that look of tender sorrow. She
did not speak for some moments. She sat silent, while
her father answered me; but her voice was clear and
gentle as usual when she wished me a pleasant winter
and bade me good-by. I listened sharply, but there
was no quiver of pain it.

I never went to the rectory on Sundays, but the
next day I saw Rachel once more in church. If she
had grieved at parting with me her face did not show
it now. The faint rose-hue on her cheek was no deeper;
there was no faltering in her tones as she joined
in the singing; no suspicious dew in her clear yet tender
eyes. The rector's sermon that day moved me
strangely. It was about heaven—that heaven where

his beloved waited for him; toward which his aged,
trembling feet were hastening fast. There was I know
not what of power and majesty in the old man's tones,
so that all who heard him felt that he testified of that
which he did know. As I listened, how vain it seemed
to grope for happiness among the rubbish of earth.
All of life looked empty and worthless save the one
narrow path which he pictured in faltering tones—the
path leading sometimes over rugged hills, where sharp
stones goad the weary feet; sometimes through green
pastures and beside still waters of peace. I remember,
as I heard him, the thought came to me whether that
saintly young girl, lifting such meek eyes to her father's
face, was not a fitter companion for one whose
feet should walk in this narrow path than Anastasia
St. John, whose proud name seemed to conjure up a
shape of earthly, not heavenly beauty, gleaming with
gold and diamonds; a rustling of silken drapery; an
embodiment of pomp, and pride, and worldliness. But
this reflection was only momentary; I was scarcely
conscious of its existence; and with the benediction
that followed the rector's prayer it faded from my
mind.

Of Rachel Deane I thought as a dear sister—nothing
more; and yet, it was strange, the last night of my stay
in Woolwich, I drew no pictures of New York gayety
and splendor; my fancy summoned no stately Miss
St. John to bear me company; but my eyes seemed to
see, instead, an ancient gray-stone rectory — an old
man sitting by the western window watching the sunset
and the graves—a young girl pacing back and
forth among the shadows, with tender, thoughtful eyes
of brown, singing to herself now and then snatches

of those grand old hymns which seem to have been
set for martyrs to die by. I went to sleep with this
cadence coming, or seeming to come, to haunt my
slumbers, low, and sweet, and very sorrowful.

The next morning I left Woolwich.

2. II.

My first three days in New York were not very
eventful ones. There was Flora's careless yet good-natured
welcome, my mother's tender greeting for her
only boy; and then I found my way to the offices
and counting-rooms of half a dozen good fellows, old
friends, whose society somehow gave me less pleasure
than formerly. I think a certain peace and quietness
had grown into my spirit during that long, still
summer in the country, on which the bustle and confusion
of this great, busy town jarred, at first, with a
sense of pain.

My sister's grand party came off on Thursday night.
I stood by her side at one end of her brilliant drawing-room
while she received her guests. Her reunions
were always very successful. It was an amusement
to me to watch the different faces—the varying
expressions of those handsomely-dressed men and
women whom she called her “set.” At last her quick
whisper in my ear aroused me from my half-listless
mood. I turned eagerly toward the door. It was
Anastasia St. John.

The expression “a stately woman” had always, from
some old, boyish association, conveyed to my mind the
idea of a brunette. I had pictured Miss St. John,

therefore, with flashing black eyes, with olive face,
framed in shining raven hair. I had been mistaken;
and yet she became, forever after, my standard of stately
beauty.

She was the proudest woman I have ever met. There
was pride in her thin nostril, her curling lip; pride sat
serene and regnant on her smooth brow. She was
tall, and faultlessly formed. Her skin was marble
white, save where, in the cheek, a faint dash of crimson
broke up through it, cold yet clear as a winter's
sunrise. Her long, thick hair was of a pale gold color.
It was folded back from her forehead in heavy
waves, and wound about her small, erect head like a
coronal. Her eyes were blue and brilliant, but there
was no warmth in them. Her dress suited her. It
was a robe of some costly lace, floating cloud-like over
azure satin. Rachel Deane may have been lovelier, but
this Anastasia St. John was the most beautiful woman
I ever saw.

There was a kind of empressement in my sister's tones
as she introduced us which convinced me that my name
was not unknown to this cold goddess, but her manner
was careless, and yet polished as glittering steel.

From that night I had an interest in New York. I
had coolly made up my mind to marry Miss St. John,
if I could win her. There was an intense excitement,
a keen zest, in trying to conquer this cold indifference,
this haughty calmness. That winter was to me like a
long game of chess. Warily, carefully, I planned every
move. Self-complacently I said, “I am playing
I well.”

In this subtle trial of strength Woolwich was well-nigh
forgotten. Sometimes I saw in my dreams a

gray rectory; a saintly girl, with calm, holy eyes, sitting
alone in the shadows; an old man, looking out toward
heaven. But in the daytime my whole thoughts
centred in this lovely maid of ice—this Mrs. Gerard
Sunderland that was to be. And yet I was forced to
acknowledge to myself that I made little progress. I
was much in Miss St. John's society. Her mother was
an invalid, and my sister was her chaperon to balls,
and drives, and operas. She accepted my attentions,
or rather she endured them without seeming scarcely
to be aware of them. She wore my bouquets, played
my music, read my new books, and yet I grew no nearer
to her. This piqued me, and I became more earnest
in the pursuit.

Lounging in my sister's room one morning, I said,
with assumed carelessness, as I unwound a roll of ribbon,

“I give you credit for good taste, Flora, but I don't
see what you think a man could marry in Anastasia
St. John. One wants a woman whose heart beats once
in a while, just often enough to show its existence;
but Miss St. John—I'd as soon think of kissing life into
a statue.”

Flora came up to me, and deliberately took the ribbon
out of my profane fingers.

“Three dollars a yard, Mr. Gerard Sunderland. I
can not have you spoil it. As for Anastasia, you don't
know her, and I do. She has got too much heart instead
of too little; you may not be the one to discover
it, but it's there. If she does love, it will be worth
winning.”

I did not believe my sister at the time, and yet her
words led me to observe Miss St. John more closely.

I began to see that she was weary sometimes. More
than once I detected an expression in her fine eyes
when they met mine which said, just as plainly as
any words could have done,

“I should like you for a friend, Mr. Sunderland, if
you would content yourself without trying to be my
lover. You do not deserve me, because you do not
understand me. I should gratify no part of your nature
but your ambition.”

But after a time I ceased to perceive this expression.
I began to believe that I loved her; that that
marble face, the clear blue of those eyes, the pale
gold of that hair, were each and all dear and necessary
to my happiness. I thought, too, that she seemed to
soften toward me. Her voice grew lower. Sometimes
I saw a strange tenderness in her eyes. Fool
that I was, I thought it was evoked by my voice. I
had indeed played well, I said to myself in these days.
The checkmate was near at hand. Already the game
had lasted through the winter.

It was on an April morning that I thought to win
my crowning triumph. I went early to see Miss St.
John. I found her alone, but I looked in vain for the
tenderness I had fancied was growing habitual to those
clear eyes. Had I, then, mistaken their expression
before? I had intended this morning to ask her to
be my wife, but the words did not come easily. I sat
still for a time and looked at her.

“Could that proud woman ever love?” I once more
asked myself, doubtingly. “Would any husband's
brow find rest on that pulseless bosom? Would any
children dare to climb that silken knee?” There was
no answer in the cold pride of her face. But another

voice spoke to me—a voice which no ear could hear
but mine.

What were you, Rachel Deane—you, so shy, so
small, so quiet—that you could shut out that proud
beauty from my vision? By what strange might of
your deep nature did you follow me, call me, draw me
toward you? Never did mortal eyes rest upon your
face more clearly than my spirit saw you then. Fearlessly
your pure soul spoke to mine.

“Sin not,” it said, “against your own best nature.
Your love is mightier than your pride.”

Every pulse leaped, every nerve in my body thrilled,
as those words rung through my heart's chambers.
She seemed to stand before me like an accusing spirit.
Oh, I knew then that I loved Rachel Deane. I believed—how
sweet the hope was—that she loved me;
that, apart, earth held for either of us no true happiness.
In my heart I blessed her for rising up before
me: I called her my salvation. Her presence seemed
very real to me. I lifted my eyes, and they then fell
on Anastasia St. John, sitting there calm, and proud,
and very beautiful, her great eyes seeming to look at
something far away—something that was not me. I
had never loved her; she had never loved me. Something
within me forced me to speak to her—a new
emotion I had for her—a calm, quiet esteem, a friendly
regard, of which I knew now she was worthy. By
this moved, I went up to her. I extended my hand.
I said,

“I am here, Miss St. John, to bid you good-by. I
leave New York this afternoon. Your society has
made this winter very pleasant to me. We began it
as strangers; I feel that we shall part as true friends.”

She understood me. She had never looked so good
to me as then. She put her hand in mine. Did I
see rightly? I think the tears gathered in her eyes.
Her voice was very gentle.

“I thank you,” she said, warmly. “We are true
friends—we will be. I am not so careless or so happy
as the world calls me. I have my griefs; but
when I think of you, I will remember that I have one
friend.”

“God bless you!” I said, with a fervent prayer for
her in my heart. I left her with such tenderness as I
had never thought she could inspire. I never saw
her again.

My sister met me upon the stairs. She had known
of my intention to visit Miss St. John.

“How sped your wooing?” she asked, gayly.

“Flora,” I answered, “you were right. You understood
your friend better than I did. Miss St. John
could love with a love that would be worth winning,
but I am not the one.”

I believe she thought I had been rejected. At any
rate, she made no opposition to my plan of returning
to Woolwich that afternoon, and three o'clock saw me
upon the cars.

3. III.

Oh, how fast we whizzed along. I had heard some
one say we had started a little behind time, but it was
not half fast enough for me. I felt like crying out to
the conductor for more speed. My spirits were at
their flood. I was going to Rachel. I knew my own

heart now. With the hope of her love in my mind I
grew quieter. I sank into a reverie. I sat back in
my seat and drew my hat over my eyes, and then I
strove to recall all the tokens she had given me of her
regard. The expression which I had seen upon her
face the night before I left Woolwich came back to
me. I remembered her timid pleasure at my coming.
How charming she seemed to me in her beauty, her
grace, her innocent youth. I pictured her as my wife.
I thought how bright would be the stately house behind
the pine-trees when her light figure glided up
and down the stairs, or sat, in household quiet, by the
hearth-stone. I gloried in the thought of protecting
her—of keeping all sorrow and care away from her
life—of leading her footsteps out of the shadow into
the light.

Absorbed in thoughts like these, time sped rapidly.
We were nearing Woolwich. I looked from the window,
and the fields by the wayside were familiar. My
heart bounded. Soon I should see Rachel. I would
tell her that I loved her—I would know my fate from
her own lips. I fancied how her eyes would droop—
how the color would come and go in her cheeks—how
shyly her little hand would flutter into mine.

Just then came a sudden, quivering motion running
along all the train—a crash—a loud, prolonged,
wailing shriek, and after that I remembered nothing
more.

It was a warm morning in May when my consciousness
came back to me. My first emotion was that
of pleasure in the balmy air; the blossoms upon the
trees which brushed in at the open window; the
spring sunshine over all. Next came a curious feeling

of, not exactly pain, but goneness. My senses were
hardly yet fully aroused. I put my hand where this
sensation most oppressed me. My right leg seemed
to have been cut off above the knee. I should have
thought I must be dreaming, but that the maimed
limb was exquisitely tender and sensitive to the touch.
I looked around the room where I was lying. It was
not in my own house. It bore strange resemblance
to an apartment in the rectory. I was quite alone,
but some feminine piece of work lay upon a stand by
the window. A few spring flowers stood there also, in
a delicate vase.

Soon I heard footsteps approaching. I closed my
eyes and lay very still. The footsteps came into the
room. Then I heard Rachel's voice, in a tone of sad,
almost pleading inquiry:

“You do think, Dr. Smith, that his reason will come
back to him? He won't rave so always?”

“No fear of that, Rachel. No head could stand
such a blow as his got without being dazed for a while.
Poor fellow! when his senses do come, it'll be a sorry
awakening. A young, rich, good-looking man like
him to have to carry a cork leg with him all his life.”

I heard Rachel sigh, but she did not answer, and
Dr. Smith left the room, saying he would be back in
half an hour to dress the leg. Rachel came to the
bedside. I knew she was standing beside me; I knew,
as well as if I had seen her, that her tears were falling
silently. I opened my eyes and looked at her.

“Come, Rachel,” I said, “I heard what Dr. Smith
told you, and now I want you to sit down beside me
and tell me all about it. How long ago was it?”

She struggled hard to control herself.

“About four weeks,” she said; “the cars—” but
here she broke down utterly and hurried from the
room. I lay there, wrestling with an agony before
which any mere physical suffering sank into insignificance.
It was not that my pride was humbled—not
that I must go through life a lame, to some degree a
helpless man, but it was that I felt I could never ask
Rachel to be a cripple's wife—to mate her loveliness
with my deformity. I strove in vain to choke back
the cry which my longing heart would utter. My
grief o'ermastered me. But I will not write out the
sorrow on which only God and my own soul have
ever looked.

When Dr. Smith came back I drew from him an
account of the accident. I shudder to recall the frightful
story now. So many souls called, unthinking, before
their Maker. Such groans, such tumult, such
helpless cries of agony. Dr. Smith pictured it vividly,
but there is no need that I should write out its horrors
here. I had been taken up, at first, for dead,
stunned by a severe blow upon my head. In all this,
the doctor said, Rachel had been the most wonderful
nurse. I believed him.

During the two tedious months of convalescence
which followed, there was often, in the midst of my
agony, a troubled joy. Sometimes it seemed happiness
enough to have Rachel in my sight; her gentle
hands ministering about me. Sometimes, too, there
was a look in her eyes whose meaning I dared not
meet, lest it should make me selfish. I had resolved,
firmly, that I would never seek her love. I would
not impose upon her tenderness, her pity, to win any
pledge which she might regret afterward. No, I must

live alone all my life; but I turned from these thoughts
to rejoice in her smile, in the tender tones of her voice.

It was midsummer before I went to my own house.
In the mean time I had learned to walk in the poor
crippled fashion in which I must make up my mind
always to move about hereafter. Several times I had
proposed to go home, but neither Mr. Deane nor his
daughter would allow it. I must stay with them until
I was quite well. I had been brought to them
when I was first hurt. They had nursed me through
my delirium; they had claims upon me, and I must
obey them. I confess I staid with them willingly.
But at last the time was fixed for my final removal.
The day before, I was to drive to my home and give
Mrs. Tabitha a few directions. I had sent for Mike to
come with the carriage.

When it arrived, I entreated Rachel to do her patient
one more good turn, and go home with me for
an hour. She consented, and we took the short drive
in silence. When I reached the house I wanted to
walk a little about the grounds, and she made me lean
upon her arm. How strangely it reminded me of my
fancies, that sad day in April, about how tenderly I
would protect her. Now this frail, delicate girl at my
side was helping to guide my steps. I could not bear
it; I hurried her into the house.

I do not know how it chanced that we sat down,
not in the drawing-room, but in my Uncle Gerard's
study. For a time I looked at her in outward silence,
but my soul was crying out in its agony. So many
hopes came back to mock me. I had thought once
how her light feet would flit in girlish glee up and
down those walks lying so white and gleaming in the

summer sunshine; that she would sit by my fireside,
the glory of my home and my life. The great pangs
became too mighty for me. In spite of myself they
found a voice. I rose and walked across the room.
I put back the curtain from before her mother's picture.

“There,” I said, and my tones were almost stern
with the effort to keep back the grief surging in my
heart, “there, Rachel Deane, is the picture my Uncle
Gerard painted of your mother. You are like it. I
am not the inheritor alone of my uncle's wealth, but
of his hopeless love. This is my inheritance. To live
here, as he lived, alone. To love as he loved. To
long vainly as he longed. Nay, Rachel, do not turn
your eyes away. I did not mean to tell you, but you
must hear me now. Even as my uncle loved your
mother and loved in vain, so must I, till my death day,
love you. I was coming to Woolwich that day to tell
you this love, to ask you to be my wife. I thought
then I could win you; but God interposed, and we
are separated.”

She came across the room. She laid her hands, her
little, woman's hands, upon my arm. The truth shone
out of her clear eyes into my very soul. Her voice
was firm but tearful. I can never forget her dear,
dear words:

“We are not separated. We never can be. Take
me, Gerard, if you love me. I love you; I have loved
you long. I do not care for life unless I can pass it
with you.”

I could not gainsay her. I felt that she spoke truly,
and thus the great joy and blessedness of love
drifted into my heart—flooded my full life. I could

not speak. I opened my arms and took her—thank
God, I took my betrothed close to my heart. I know
not how long we sat there. It was almost night before
we returned. As I led her up the rectory steps,
I said, not because I doubted her, but because I longed
to hear her reply,

“Are you sure, my beloved, that you will never regret
this—that you will be quite content with an ugly,
crippled man, so many years older than yourself?”

Her brimming eyes answered me, and then her voice
came to my heart, freighted with words too full of
blessing to write here. They satisfied me forever.

We went together to her father as he sat at the western
window. We told him of our love and asked his
blessing. He rose and laid his aged, trembling hands
upon our heads. He blessed us. As we turned away
we heard him murmur,

“Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace.”

We turned back as we reached the door to look at
him. He sat again at the window, and his far-seeing
eyes were fixed, not on his Amy's grave, but on the
golden clouds far, far away. We left him there.

We had much to say to each other. I told Rachel
of Miss St. John, and how she herself had been present
to my fancy—had come after me and brought me
back, when I would have done my own heart wrong;
and she answered me with smiles and with tears.
That first twilight after our betrothal was a blessed
hour.

When we went in the moon had risen. The old
man sat there still. Rachel went up to him, and laid
her hand upon his brow.

“Oh, how cold he is!” she cried. “Father, father,
wake up! Don't you hear me, father?”

I went toward her. Her father could never more
hear any sound of earthly tones. He was gone to
Amy. Who can tell what voice had called him?
what fair hand had beckoned from the sunset clouds?

We laid him by Amy's side in the quiet church-yard,
where the snow-flakes would drop, a white mantle
of peace, above them in the winter; where the
summer winds would blow, and the summer birds
would sing. Even in their death they were not long
divided.

Rachel bore it well, for she knew that joy had dawned
for the reunited ones in heaven; and on earth my
love comforted her. It was not many weeks before
she became my wife. She dwelt in peace in the stately
mansion where her mother's portrait had waited for
her so many years. My life was rounded into full and
beautiful symmetry. I asked no more of fate. I was
content with my crippled form, my halting gait, for
my soul's life was bright and blissful; the path wherein
Rachel and I were walking onward to the world lying
beyond was lightened by Heaven's own sunshine.

The summer was not over when an unusually long
letter came to me, in my sister's hand. She had written
previously her congratulations on my marriage,
and an invitation to bring my bride to New York.
As she was not a frequent letter-writer, I broke the
seal with considerable curiosity. The contents were
sad, but they gave me the key to a character I had ardently
desired to comprehend.

“We know now,” she wrote, “why Anastasia St.

John did not care for you. A little while ago, a young
man, the supercargo of a vessel, was reported as lost at
sea, and then it came out. She had known him when
her father was poorer—when they were both children,
indeed, and had loved him faithfully all her life. He
was poor, and her father opposed it; but she was content
to forego wealth and luxury for his sake. They
were waiting till he could make enough to marry respectably.
This was why she was always so cold in
society. You know how she kept every one at a distance.
It seems she saw his death in a paper, and it
literally broke her heart. She was found with the
blood flowing in a crimson tide from her mouth, and
the paper clutched in her hand. In three days she
was dead. They buried her yesterday. Poor, proud
broken heart! Poor Anastasia St. John!”

My darling had read the letter over my shoulder.
I felt her tears upon my cheek as she murmured, in
her tender, pitying voice, this fragment from a ballad
that she loved:

Behold, I have told you the story of My Inheritance.
Vale!