University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE OLD MAN'S DEATH-BED.

High up in one of the lofty chambers of the Herndon
mansion, an old man lay dying. What mattered it now,
that the bedstead on which he lay was of the costliest
mahogany, or the sheets of the finest linen! Death was
there, waiting eagerly for his expected victim. Memory
was busily at work, and far back through a long era
of by-gone years, arose a dark catalogue of sin, which
made the sick man shudder as he tossed from side to side
in his feverish delirium. “Away, away,” he would shout,
with maniacal frenzy. “I did not turn you all from my
door. I only told my servants to do it. And you, starving,
weeping women, I only did what thousands have
done when I sold your all, and imprisoned your husbands
for debt. Away! I say. Don't taunt me with it now.”
Then his manner would soften, and he would call out,
“But stay,—is it money you want? Take it;—take all
I've got, and let that atone for the past.”

At this juncture Ira entered the room, on his return
from visiting his daughter. He was greatly alarmed at
the change in his father, but learning that a physician had
been sent for, he sat down, and endeavored to soothe his
father's excitement. He succeeded, and when the physician
arrived, he found his patient sleeping quietly.
From this sleep, however, he soon awoke, fully restored
to consciousness.

Turning to his son, he said, “Ira, did n't you tell me
she was your child?”

Mr. Herndon answered in the affirmative, and the old

man continued: “I would see her ere I die. Send for
her quickly, for the morning will not find me here.”

Ira arose to do his father's bidding, when he added,
“And, Ira, I must make my will; send for the proper
persons, will you?”

Ira saw that his father's orders were executed, and then
returned to his bedside to await the coming of Alice.
She was aroused from a sound sleep, and told that her
grandfather was dying, and would see her. Hurriedly
dressing herself, she was soon on her way to the village.
As she entered her grandfather's house, she looked
around her in amazement at the splendor which surrounded
her.

As she advanced into the sick-room, Squire Herndon
fixed his dark, bright eye upon her, and said, “Alice,
they tell me you are my grand-daughter; I would I had
known it before; but come nearer to me now, and let me
bless you.”

Alice knelt by the bedside of the white-haired man,
whose hand was laid amid her silken curls, as he uttered
a blessing upon the fair young girl. When she arose, he
said to his son, “Now I must make my will. Call in the
lawyer.”

The words caught Alice's ear, and involuntarily she
sprang back to her grandfather, and kissing his feverish
brow, said, “Dear grandpa, I wish I could tell you something,—could
ask you something.”

“What is it, my child?” asked her grandfather. “Let
me know your request, and it shall be granted.”

Alice blushed deeply, for she felt that her father's eye
was upon her, but she unhesitatingly said, “You have
seen Frank, grandfather,—you know him?”

“Yes, yes,” said the squire. “I know him and like
him, too. I understand you, Alice; I will do right.”

Alice again kissed him, and then quitted the apartment,
in which, for the next half hour, was heard the scratchings
of the lawyer's pen, and the faint tones of the dying
one, as he dictated his will.