University of Virginia Library

40. XL.
In Which the Story Ends.

MISS KITTY FLEMING had really forgotten
how many friends she had left behind
her in the city, till the recent decision brought
them to mind by cards, and letters, and visits in
troops. A vast number of pleasant young ladies,
of whom she never expected to hear again in the
world, had been “long waiting for an occasion to
write,” and to tell her how dearly they were
attached to her, and how very much they missed
her from the town circles.

Among the other young people who found a
recollection of their old intimacy pleasantly revived

by the recent decision of the court, was Mr. Adolphus
Quid. He set about a speculative comparison
of the weazen-faced Miss Arabella Spindle, with
the blooming country countenance of my cousin
Kitty. He recalled his father's pleasant mention
“that he might do worse.”

Miss Spindle thought him less piquant than
usual, and expressed herself to the effect “that he
was very slow.”

Mrs. Spindle said he was—very.

He turned his mind more and more in the direction
of Newtown; and at length—it must have
been ten days and more after the decision of the
court—he turned his trotter in that direction.

It may be a source of surprise to many, that he
would have made such a venture. But Adolphe
was one of those happily-constituted young men—
of whom the number is myriad—who never had a
doubt of his powers of fascination. He never once
questioned the fact of his holding undisputed empire
still, over the affections of the innocent Miss
Fleming. He had regaled himself, not infrequently,
upon the thought of her misery under his recent
neglect; he regarded his present disposition to
renew advances as an act of clemency; he looked
upon her fortune as a probable and sufficient
reward.

Now it happened that just before Mr. Quid
drove up gaily to the cottage door where the village
school was held, another friend of ours, Mr.
Harry Flint, had gone in to fulfil certain last commissions,
and to make his final adieux before leaving
his native town for ever, for a home upon the shores
of the Pacific.

The commissions were small; among others, a
little paquet that Bessie had put in his hand the
day before her death, to be given to Kitty: she
said it contained her book of prayer.

It was a sombre interview; for Harry had not
shaken off his grief, and could not; and the sympathy
of those he met and with whom he parted
was deep and tender. The next day morning he
was to leave; he had told them this, and was hurrying
the words of parting, when Mr. Quid entered.

Mrs. Fleming, the plain country lady, was sadly
embarrassed, and the cheek of Kitty took on a suddenly
deep scarlet tinge.

Harry Flint was watchful of this—sadly watchful;
but he assumed a quick composure, and bade
them a sudden adieu—mother and daughter—and
left the cottage for ever.

The old grievance of the love of Kitty for the
stranger from the city, flashed upon him anew, and
added a pang, it may be, to the grief that shrouded

his desolate home. I do not think that he acknowledged
this even to himself. I am sure he would
have denied it stoutly. But still, through the dark
cloud of his home affliction that lay heavy on him,
there did flash fitful thoughts of the inconstancy of
women, of the vanity of all earthly ties; and gleams,
more fitful still, of the selfish pride with which, and
with which only, he would face henceforth the world,
and conquer a name and die!

He did not know that Kitty, trembling, with
only the weight of that little Book of Prayer in her
hands, withdrew herself suddenly—never to meet
him again—from the confident Adolphus. And in
her chamber, the impatient walk from door to window
and from window to door, the eager struggles
with a feeling which at length gained mastery and
spent itself in tears, told plainly that Kitty, with
all her new wealth, and with no dead sister to mourn
over, had yet her share of the trials which come
some day near to all of us.

Kitty opened the paquet: she found between the
leaves of the book a withered flower; she knew it
by the faded ribbon that tied the stem. Bessie had
written upon a slip of paper, in pencil: “I send
you back a flower which you gave long ago to
Harry. He will be sorry to lose it, but it is
not right he should keep it, since all is at

an end between you. How I wish it were not
so!”

Kitty kept the flower in the book, and the slip
of paper on which Bessie had written. And she
found comfort in the half line of Bessie's: “He
will be sorry to lose it!”

When Mr. Quid drove back to town (his trotter
never made better time) he tried to think that the
pinched face of Miss Arabella Spindle was, after
all, prettier than the sad one of Miss Fleming; and
he hummed some lines from Sheridan (for he was
read in the play-writers) about

Accident detained Harry Flint over the next
day. No one knew, however, that he had not gone.
It is not pleasant to say adieu twice: he remained
throughout the day at the cottage of his aunt.

As night fell, a soft summer's night, with crimson-tinted
clouds hanging late and high upon the
sky, he set off to repeat one adieu again. It was
no mortal that he sought; only a leave-taking
with the spirit of his dead sister. For this, he
went to the grave-yard where her body lay. The
moon had come up, and threw the shadow of a little
copse of cedars upon the mound. He did not

see until he came very near, that some one was
lingering by the grave.

Sympathy is a very quick bond of the affections
and the heart of Harry warmed towards the
stranger who shared his grief; nor did he relent
when he found in his fellow-mourner his old friend
Kitty.

She would have slipped away unnoticed even now,
if it were possible; for she had come with Bessie's
book in her hand, only to say a prayer at her grave.

But Harry called after her.

“I thought you were gone,” said she.

Harry explained that he had been delayed. He
was glad, he said, it had happened so, if it were
only to learn that there were others who mourned
with him.

“I do,” said Kitty, and in a tone so rich and
earnest, that Harry was glad of the twilight to hide
the tear which came in his eye blindingly.

He thanked her, in a kinder tone than she had
heard from him in many a day.

“You go away soon?” said she inquiringly.

“To-morrow;” and added, bitterly, “there is little
to keep me here.”

Kitty trembled; she knew not if it were best to
go or to stay. She ventured to say, “You have
friends left among us, Harry.”

“I have little need of friends now,” returned he,
with a proud sorrow in his tone.

“You have need of friends,” said Kitty, her girl's
heart warming in her, “we all have need of them.”
And, emboldened by her own tone and truth, she
told him of what she had found in the book Bessie
had given her, and of what she had written. She
could not understand it wholly, nor wholly the distant
manner he had guarded so long. She hoped
they would be friends always—if it were only in
memory of Bessie.

Harry's pride was half yielding; but he recovered
himself and said, with an easy indifference
(that hurt him keenly), “Oh! yes; always friends.”
And his foot played idly with the sod upon the grave.

“Good-bye!” said Kitty, “God bless you
always!” and she turned to leave him.

Harry lifted his eye, and saw that she was
earnest and tender in her parting.

He reached out his hand to take hers; he must
speak.

“Kitty, I could wish to stay, but”— (the
thought of the morning, and the morning visitor,
crossed his mind) and he ended abruptly, “I cannot.”

Kitty turned to leave him—this time with an
assured air of womanly dignity, and yet with tenderness
in her look. “Good-bye! Harry,” repeated

she; “since you go so soon, we shall hardly see
you again.”

He was conquered. “Kitty, can I stay?” said
he, in a nervous tone.

“For shame, Harry!” and she said it very
meaningly.

“And your visitor of this morning, Mr. —?”

“Well!” (is Kitty growing impudent?)

“Are you to become his wife, Kitty?”

“That is a very strange question?” says Kitty,
with eyes wide open; but with a mischievous smile
upon her lips that provokes Harry to ask a stranger
question still—if she would become, what he had
long dreamed might be, but feared could never
happen, his own true wife?”

Kitty's eyes were not wide open now, or, if they
were, he could not see it; and, in a tone by half
less brave than before, she told him he might come
for his answer to-morrow.

Here came Harry's turn to rebel: and with a
quick courage he compelled a reply, before they
had left the shade of the cedar-copse.

In short, it is my opinion that they went on talking
after this in a very absurd manner; and that
Kitty presently fell to crying, for no reason in the
world.

Harry went with a light heart to his aunt's
home; and he marched straight towards that old
lady—looking very melancholy in her trimly plaited
mourning-cap—and, without one word of warning,
kissed her between the eyes.

Now, Harry, although he entertained a reasonable
affection for the aunt, was not used to such
demonstrations as this.

“God bless me!” said the old lady, in surprise,
“what on airth is the matter with the
boy?”

“Well, I'm to be married, aunt Peggy, that's
all!” said Harry.

“For shame, Harry!” said the aunt.

“And you, aunt Peggy, will come and be our
house-keeper.”

“I'll do no such thing, master Harry!”

“Tut, tut!”

“I love you, Harry,” continued the aunt, “but
your wife!—no, Harry, you must live apart
from me!”

“Tut, tut, aunt Peggy! suppose, now, you were
to love her as much or more than myself?”

“I can't, and I shan't,” said aunt Peggy, tartly.

“Not if it were”—

“No matter who,” said aunt Peggy.

“Not if it were little Kitty, your own Kit?”

“God bless me, Harry! is it true? will you
marry Kitty?”

“I will,” said Harry.

“And will she marry you?”

“She says she will,” said he.

“I will go with you, Harry, wherever you like.”

I don't think the wedding-cards were sent to the
Quids, although they are connected with our family;
nor do I think they were sent to the Pinkertons or
the Spindles, although Mrs. Solomon Fudge suggested
it, and thought they might be induced to come.

The two Misses Fudge came to the reception, and
enjoyed it highly. Blimmer, too, was there, much
to the surprise of Miss Jemima; and he took occasion
to remark to Mr. Flint, that in case he thought
of changing his residence, one or two highly eligible
lots were still left in Blimmersville.

Mehitabel Bivins was present; although she had
expressed her disapproval of the match, and knew
it was a scheme of Harry Flint's from the beginning.

Mr. Bivins had ordered a new coat for the occasion,
and flirted, people said, with aunt Peggy. I
do not think this can be true; since I had occasion
to observe that old lady seated beside my uncle
Solomon (who was propped up with pillows in a
corner-chair), and trying very hard to comprehend

his broken twaddle about “Miss Kitty and Misser
Fint.”

Jerry, by special request of Kitty, was served
with an extra-sized box of the wedding-cake, and
is, I understand, to be installed as clerk in the office
of Harry Flint, attorney-at-law. I am happy to
observe, indeed, that this gentleman, unlike many
who marry fortunes, has not given up his profession,
or his disposition to work.