University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SIX YEARS LATER.

The New York and Springfield train eastward bound
stood waiting in the depot at New Haven. There had
been a slight accident which occasioned a detention of
several minutes, and taking advantage of this delay many
of the passengers alighted to stretch their weary limbs or
inhale a breath of purer air than could be obtained within
the crowded car. Several seats were thus left unoccupied,
one of which a tall, dark, foreign-looking man, with
eyes concealed by a green shade, was about appropriating
to himself, when a wee little hand was laid on his and a
sweet baby voice called out,

“That's my mamma's chair, big man, mamma gone after
cake for Nina!”

The stranger started, and his face flushed with some
strong emotion, while his hand rested caressingly upon
the flowing curls of the beautiful three-years-old girl, as
he asked,

“Who is mamma, darling? What is her name, I
mean?”

“I can tell that a heap better'n Nina,” chimed in a boy
of five, who was sitting just across the aisle, and joining
the little girl, he continued, “My mother is Edith, so Aunt
Grace calls her, but father says Miggie most all the time.

The stranger sank into the seat, dizzy and faint with
the mighty shock, for he knew now that Edith's children
were standing there before him — that frank, fearless boy,
and that sweet little girl, who, not earing to be outdone
by her brother, said, in a half exultant way, as if it were
something of which she were very proud,

“I've got an Uncle 'Ichard, I have, and he's tomin'
home bime by.”

“And going to bring me lots of things,” interrupted the
boy again, “Marie said so.”

At this point a tall, slender Frenchman, who had entered
behind the man with the green shade, glided from the
car, glancing backward just in time to see that his master
had coaxed both children into his lap, the girl coming
shyly, while the boy sprang forward with that wide-awake
fearlessness which characterized all his movements. He
was a noble-looking little fellow, and the stranger hugged
him fondly as he kissed the full red lips so like to other
lips kissed long years ago.

“What makes you wear this funny thing?” asked the
child, peering up under the shade.

“Because my eyes are weak,” was the reply. “People
around your home call me blind.”

“Uncle 'Ichard is blind,” lisped the little girl, while the
boy rejoined, “but the bestest man that ever lived. Why,
he's betterer than father, I guess, for I asked ma wan't he,
and pa told me yes.”

“Hush-sh, child,” returned the stranger, fearing lest they
might attract too much attention.

“Then removing the shade, his eyes rested long and
wistfully upon the little boy and girl as he said,

“I am your Uncle Richard.”

“True as you live and breathe are you Uncle Dick,” the
boy almost screamed, winding his chubby arms around the
stranger's neck, while Nina standing upon her feet chirped
out her joy as she patted the bearded cheek, and called him
“Uncle' Ick.”

Surely if there had been any lingering pain in the heart
of Richard Harrington it was soothed away by the four
soft baby hands which passed so caressingly over his face
and hair, while honeyed lips touched his, and sweet bird-like
voices told how much they had been taught to love
one whom they always called Uncle. These children had
been the hardest part of all to forgive, particularly the
first born, for Richard, when he heard of him had felt all
the old sorrow coming back again; a feeling as if Edith
had no right with little ones which did not call him father.
But time had healed that wound too, until from the
sunny slopes of France, where his home had so long been,
his heart had often leaped across the sea in quest of these
same children now prattling in his ear and calling him
Uncle Dick. There was another, a dearer name by which
they might have called him, but he knew now that 'twas
not for him to be thus addressed. And still he felt something
like a father's love stealing into his heart as he
wound his arms around the little forms, giving back kiss
for kiss, and asking which was like their mother.

“Ain't none of us much,” Dick replied. “We're like
father and Aunt Nina, hanging on the wall in the library.
Mother's got big black eyes, with winkers a rod long, and
her hair shines like my velvet coat, and comes most to her
feet.”

Richard smiled, and was about to speak again, when

Dick forestalled him by asking — not if he had brought
him something, but where it was.

“It's in your trunk, I guess,” he said, as his busy fingers
investigated every pocket and found nothing savoring of
playthings, except a knife, both blades of which were
opened in a trice, and tried upon the window sill!

Richard, who, never having known much of children,
had not thought of presents, was sorely perplexed, when
luckily Victor returned, bringing a paper of molasses
candy, which he slyly thrust into his master's hand,
whispering to him,

“They always like that.”

Victor had calculated aright, for nothing could have
pleased the St. Claires more; and when, as she entered
at the door, Edith caught sight of her offspring, she hardly
knew them, so besmeared were their little faces with molasses,
Nina having wiped her hands first upon her hair
and then rubbed them upon Richard's knee, while Victor
looked on a little doubtful as to what the mother might
say.

“There's mam-ma,” Nina cried, trying to shake back
her curls, which nevertheless stuck tightly to her forehead.
“There's mam-ma,” and in an instant little Dick,
as he was called, found himself rather unceremoniously set
down upon his feet, as Richard adjusted his shade, and
resumed the air of helplessness so natural to the blind.

Edith had been to New York with Marie and the children,
leaving the former there for a few weeks, and was
now on her way home, whither she hoped ere long to
welcome Richard, whom she had never seen since the
night of her marriage, when Victor led him half fainting
from the altar. He would not join them at the breakfast
next morning, but sent them his good-bye, and when they
returned from their long, happy bridal tour they found a
letter for them saying Richard was in Paris.

Regularly after that they heard from him, and though

he never referred to the past, Edith knew how much it cost
him to write to one whom he had loved so much. Latterly,
however, his letters had been far more cheerful in their
tone, and it struck Edith that his hand-writing too, was
more even than formerly, but she suspected nothing and
rather anticipated the time when she should be eyes for
him again, just as she used to be. He had said in his last
letter that he was coming home ere long, but she had no
idea that he was so near, and she wondered what tall, greyish
haired gentleman it was who had taken possession of
her seat.

“Mother,” little Dick was about to scream, when Victor
placed his hand upon his mouth, at the same time turning
his back to Edith, who, a little surprised at the proceeding,
and a little indignant it may be, said rather haughtily,
and with a hasty glance at Richard,

“My seat, sir, if you please.”

The boy by this time had broken away from Victor, and
yelled out, “Uncle Dick, ma, Uncle Dick;” but it did not
need this now to tell Edith who it was. A second glance
had told her, and with face almost as white as the linen
collar about her neck, she reeled forward, and would have
fallen but for Victor, who caught her by the shoulder and
set her down beside his master.

Richard was far less excited than herself, inasmuch as
he was prepared for the meeting, and as she sank down
with the folds of her grey traveling dress lying in his lap,
he offered her his hand, and with the same old sunny
smile she remembered so well, said to her,

“Do you not know me?”

“Yes,” she gasped, “but it takes my breath away. I
was not expecting you so soon. I am so glad.”

He knew she was by the way her snowy fingers twined
themselves around his own and by the fervent pressure of
her lips upon his hand.

“Mam-ma's tyin',” said Nina, and then Edith's tears

fell fast, dropping upon the broad hand she still held, and
which very, very gradually, but still intentionally drew
hers directly beneath the green shade, and there Richard
kept it, his thumb hiding the broad band of gold which
told she was a wife.

It was a very small, white, pretty hand, and so perhaps
he imagined, for he held it a long, long time, while he talked
quite naturally of Arthur, of Grace, of the people of Shannondale,
and lastly of her children.

“They crept into my heart before I knew it,” he said,
releasing Edith's hand and lifting Nina to his knee. “They
are neither of them much like you, my namesake says.”

This reminded Edith of the mysterious shade which
puzzled her so much, and, without replying directly to him,
she asked why it was worn. Victor shot a quick, nervous
glance at his master, who without the slightest tremor in
his voice, told her that he had of late been troubled with
weak eyes, and as the dust and sunlight made them worse, he
had been advised to wear it while traveling as a protection.

“I shall remove it by and by, when I am rested,” he
said.

And Edith hoped he would, for he did not seem natural
to her with that ugly thing disfiguring him as it did.

When Hartford was reached Richard found an opportunity
of whispering something to Victor, who replied,

“Tired and dusty. Better wait, if you want a good
impression.”

So, with a spirit of self-denial of which we can scarcely
conceive Richard did wait, and the shade was drawn closely
down as little Nina, grown more bold climbed up beside
him, and poised upon one foot, her fat arm resting on his
neck, played “peek-a-boo” beneath the shade, screaming
at every “peek,” “I seen your eyes, I did.”

A misstep backward, a tumble and a bumped head
brought this sport to an end, just as Shannondale was
reached, and in her attempts to soothe the little girl, Edith

failed to see that the shade was lifted for a single moment,
while, standing upon the platform, Richard's eyes wandered
eagerly, greedily over the broad meadow lands and
fields of waving grain, over the wooded hills, rich in summer
glory, and lastly toward Collingwood, with its roofs
and slender tower basking in the July sun.

“Thank God thank God,” he whispered, just as Victor
caught his arm, bidding him alight as the train was about
to move forward.

“There's papa, there — right across the track,” and Dick
tugged at his father's coat skirts, trying to make him comprehend,
but Arthur had just then neither eyes nor ears
for anything but his sobbing little daughter, whose forehead
he kissed tenderly, thereby curing the pain and healing
the wounded heart of his favorite child, his second
golden-haired Nina.

Dick, however, persevered, until his father understood
what he meant, and Nina was in danger of being hurt
again, so hastily was she dropped when Arthur learned
that Richard had come. There was already a crowd
around him, but they made way for Arthur, who was not
ashamed to show before them all, how much he loved
the noble man, or how glad he was to have him back.

“Richard has grown old,” the spectators said to each
other, as they watched him till he entered the carriage

And so he had. His hair was quite grey now, and the
tall figure was somewhat inclined to stoop, while about
the mouth were deep-cut lines which even the heavy mustache
could not quite conceal. But he would grow young
again, and even so soon he felt his earlier manhood coming
back as he rode along that pleasant afternoon, past the
fields where the newly-mown hay, fresh from a recent
shower, sent forth its fragrance upon the summer air,
while the song of the mowers mingled with the click of
the whetting scythe, made sweet, homelike sounds which
he loved to hear. Why did he lean so constantly from the

carriage, and why when Victor exclaimed, “The old ruin
is there yet,” referring to Grassy Spring, did he, too, look
across the valley?

Arthur asked himself this question many times, and at
last, when they reached Collingwood and Edith had alighted,
he bent forward and whispered in Richard's ear, not an
interrogation, but a positive affirmation, which brought
back the response,

“Don't tell her — not yet, I mean.”

Arthur turned very white and could scarcely stand as
he stepped to the ground, for that answer, had taken his
strength away, and Victor led him instead of his master
into the house, where the latter was greeted joyfully by
the astonished servants.

He seemed very weary, and after receiving them all,
asked to go to his room where he could rest.

“You will find it wholly unchanged.” Arthur said.
“Nothing new but gas.”

“I trust I shall not set the house on fire this time,” was
Richard's playful rejoinder, as he followed Victor up the
stairs to the old familiar chamber, where his valet left him
alone to breathe out his fervent thanksgivings for the
many blessings bestowed on one, who, when last he left
that room, had said in his sorrow, there were no sunspots
left.

The first coming home he so much dreaded was over
now, and had been accompanied with far less pain than he
feared. He knew they were glad to have him back — Arthur
and his dear sister, as he always called her now.
Never since the bridal night had the name Edith passed
his lips, and if perchance he heard it from others, he shuddered
involuntarily. Still the sound of her voice had not
hurt him as he thought it would; nothing had been half
so hard as he had anticipated, and falling upon his knees,
he poured out his soul in prayer, nor heard the steps upon
the threshold as Arthur came in, his heart too full to tarry

outside longer. Kneeling by Richard, he, too, thanked
the Good Father, not so much for his friend's safe return
as for the boon, precious as life itself, which had been
given to that friend.

When at last their prayers were ended, both involuntarily
advanced to the window, where, with his handsome,
manly face turned fully to the light, Arthur stood immovable,
nor flinched a hair, as Edith would ere long when
passing the same ordeal. He did not ask what Richard
thought of him, neither did Richard tell, only the remark,

“I do not wonder that she loved you best.”

They then talked together of a plan concerning Edith,
after which Arthur left his brother to the repose he so
much needed ere joining them in the parlor below. Never
before had pillows seemed so soft or bed so grateful as
that on which Richard laid him down to rest, and sleep
was just touching his heavy eyelids, when upon the door
there came a gentle rap, accompanied with the words,

“P'ease, Uncle 'Ick, let Nina tome. She's all dessed
up so nice.”

That little girl had crept way down into Richard's heart,
just as she did into every body's, and he admitted her at
once, suffering her to climb up beside him, where, with
her fat, dimpled hands folded together, she sat talking to
him in her sweet baby language,

“'Ess go to sleep, Nina tired,” she said at last, and folding
his arms about her, Richard held her to his bosom as
if she had been his own. “'Tain't time to say p'ayers, is
it?” she asked, fearing lest she should omit her duty; and
when Richard inquired what her prayers were, she answered,

“Now I lay me — and God bess Uncle 'Ick. Mam-ma
tell me that.”

Richard's eyes filled with tears, which the waxen fingers
wiped away, and when somewhat later Victor cautiously
looked in, he saw them sleeping there together, Nina's
golden head nestled in Richard's neck, and one of her little
hands lain upon his cheek.

Meantime, in Edith's room Arthur was virtually superintending
the making of his wife's evening toilet, a most
unprecedented employment for mankind in general, and
him in particular. But for some reason wholly inexplicable
to Edith, Arthur was unusually anxious about her personal
appearance, suggesting among other things that she
should wear a thin pink muslin, which he knew so well
became her dark style of beauty; and when she reminded
him of its shortcomings with regard to waist and sleeves,
he answered playfully,

“That does not matter. 'Twill make you look girlish
and young.”

So Edith donned the pink dress, and clasping upon her
neck and arms the delicate ornaments made from Nina's
hair, asked of Arthur, “How she looked.”

“Splendidly,” he replied. “Handsomer even than on
our bridal night.”

And Edith was handsomer than on the night when she
stood at the altar a bride, for six years of almost perfect
happiness had chased away the restless, careworn, sorrowful
look which was fast becoming habitual, and now, at
twenty-six, Edith St. Claire was pronounced by the world
the most strikingly beautiful woman of her age. Poets
had sung of her charms, artists had transferred them to
canvas; brainless beaux, who would as soon rave about
a married woman as a single one, provided it were the
fashion so to do, had stamped them upon their hearts;
envious females had picked them all to pieces, declaring
her too tall, too black, too hoydenish to be even pretty;
while little Dick and Nina likened her to the angels,
wondering if there were anything in heaven, save Aunt
Nina, as beautiful as she. And this was Edith, who when
her toilet was completed went down to meet Grace Atherton
just arrived and greatly flurried when she heard that
Richard had come. Very earnestly the two ladies were
talking together when Arthur glanced in for a moment

and then hastened up to Richard, whom he found sitting
by the window, with Dick and Nina both seated in his
lap, the former utterly astounded at the accuracy with
which his blind uncle guessed every time how many fingers
he held up!

“Father! father!” he screamed, as Arthur came in.
“He can see just as good as if he wasn't blind!” and he
looked with childish curiosity into the eyes which had discovered
in his infantile features more than one trace of the
Swedish Petrea, grandmother to the boy.

Arthur smiled, and without replying to his son, said to
Richard,

“I have come now to take you to Edith. Grace Atherton
is there, too — a wonderfully young and handsome
woman for forty-two. I am not sure that you can tell
them apart.

“I could tell your wife from all the world,” was Richard's
answer, as putting down the children and resuming
the green shade, he went with Arthur to the door of the
library, where Grace and Edith, standing with their backs
to them were too much engaged to notice that more than
Arthur was coming.

Him Edith heard, and turning towards him she was
about to speak, when Richard lowered the green shade he
had raised for a single moment, and walking up to her took
her hand in his. Twining his fingers around her slender
wrist he said to her,

“Come with me to the window and sit on a stool at my
feet just as you used to do.”

Edith was suprised, and stammered out something about
Grace's being in the room.

“Never mind Mrs. Atherton,” he said, “I will attend to
her by and by — my business is now with you,” and he
led her to the window, where Arthur had carried a stool.

Like lightning the truth flashed upon Grace, and with a
nervous glance at the mirror to see how she herself was

looking that afternoon, she stood motionless, while Richard
dashing the shade to the floor, said to the startled Edith,

“The blind man would know how Petrea's daughter
looks.”

With a frightened shriek Edith covered up her face,
and laying her head in its old resting place, Richard's lap,
exclaimed,

“No, no, oh no, Richard. Please not look at me now.
Help me, Arthur. Don't let him,” she continued, as she
felt the strong hands removing her own by force. But
Arthur only replied by lifting up her head himself and holding
in his own the struggling hands, while Richard examined
a face seen now for the first time since its early babyhood.
Oh how scrutinisingly he scanned that face, with
its brilliant black eyes, where tears were glittering like
diamonds in the sunlight, its rich healthful bloom, its proudly
curved lip, its dimpled chin and soft, round cheeks.
What did he think of it? Did it meet his expectations?
Was the face he had known so long in his darkness as
Edith's, natural when seen by daylight? Mingled there no
shadow of disappointment in the reality? Was Arthur's
Edith at all like Richard's singing bird? How Arthur
wished he knew. But Richard kept his own counsel,
for a time at least. He did not say what he thought of her.
He only kissed the lips beginning to quiver with something
like a grieved expression that Arthur should hold her so
long, kissed them twice, and with his hand wiped her tears
away, saying playfully,

“'Tis too bad, Birdie, I know, but I've anticipated this
hour so long.”

He had not called her Birdie before, and the familiar
name compensated for all the pain which Edith had suffered
when she saw those strangely black eyes fastened upon
her, and knew that they could see. Springing to her feet
the moment she was released, she jumped into his lap in
her old impetuous way, and winding her arms around his
neck, sobbed out,

“I am so glad, Richard, so glad. You can't begin to
guess how glad, and I've prayed for this every night and
every day, Arthur and I. Didn't we, Arthur? Dear,
dear Richard, I love you so much.”

“What he make mam-ma cry for? asked a childish voice
from the corner where little Dick stood, half frightened at
what he saw, his tiny fist doubled ready to do battle for his
mother in case he should make up his mind that her rights
were invaded.

This had the effect of rousing Edith, who, faint with
excitement, was led by Arthur out into the open air, thus
leaving Richard alone with his first love of twenty-five
years ago. It did not seem to him possible that so many
years had passed over the face which, at seventeen, was
marvellously beautiful, and which still was very, very fair
and youthful in its look, for Grace was wondrously well
preserved and never passed for over thirty, save among the
envious ones, who, old themselves, strove hard to make
others older still.

“Time has dealt lightly with you, Grace,” Richard said,
after the first curious glance. “I could almost fancy you
were Grace Elmendorff yet,” and he lifted gallantly one
of her chestnut curls, just as he used to do in years agone,
when she was Grace Elmendorff.

This little act recalled so vivedly the scenes of other
days that Grace burst into a flood of tears, and hurried
from the room to the parlor adjoining, where, unobserved,
she could weep again over the hopes forever fled. Thus
left to himself, with the exception of little Dick, Richard
had leisure to look about him, descrying ere long the life-sized
portrait of Nina hanging on the wall. In an instant
he stood before what was to him, not so much a picture
painted on rude canvas, as a living reality — the golden-haired
angel, who was now as closely identified with his
every thought and feeling as even Edith herself had ever
been. She had followed him over land and sea, bringing

comfort to him in his dark hours of pain, coloring his
dreams with rainbow hues of promise, buoying him up
and bidding him wait a little — try yet longer, when the
only hope worth his living for now seemed to be dying
out, and when at last it, the wonderful cure, was done, and
those gathered around him said each to the other “He
will see,” he heard nothing for the buzzing sound which
filled his ear, and the low voice whispering to him, “I did
it — brought the daylight straight from heaven. God said
I might, and I did. Nina takes care of you.”

They told him that he had fainted from excess of joy,
but Richard believed that Nina had been with him all the
same, cherishing that conviction even to this hour, when
he stood there face to face with her, unconsciously saying
to himself, “Gloriously beautiful Nina. In all my imaginings
of you I never saw aught so fair as this. Edith is
beautiful, but not—”

“As beautiful as Nina was, am I?” said a voice behind
him, and turning round, Richard drew Edith to his side,
and encircling her with his arm answered frankly,

“No, my child, you are not as beautiful as Nina.”

“Disappointed in me, are you not? Tell me honestly,”
and Edith peered up half-archly, half-timidly into the eyes
whose glance she scarcely yet dared meet.

“I can hardly call it disappointment,” Richard answered,
smiling down upon her. “You are different looking from
what I supposed, that is all. Still you are much like what
I remember your mother to have been, save that her eyes
were softer than yours, and her lip not quite so proudly
curved.”

“In other words, I show by my face that I am a Bernard,
and something of a spitfire,” suggested Edith, and Richard
rejoined,

“I think you do,” adding as he held her a little closer
to him, “Had I been earlier blessed with sight, I should
have known I could not tame you. I should only have
spoiled you by indulgence.”

Just at this point, little Nina came in, and taking her in
her arms, Edith said,

“I wanted to call her Edith, after myself, as I thought
it might please you; but Arthur said no, she must be Nina
Bernard.”

“Better so,” returned Richard, moving away from
the picture. “I can never call another by the name I
once called you,” and this was all the sign he gave that
the wound was not quite healed.

But it was healing fast. Home influences were already
doing him good, and when at last supper was announced,
he looked very happy as he took again his accustomed
seat at the table, with Arthur opposite Edith just where
she used to be, and Grace, sitting at his right. It was a
pleasant family party they made, and the servants marvelled
much to hear Richard's hearty laugh mingling with
Edith's merry peal.

That night, when the July moon came up over the New
England hills, it looked down upon the four — Richard
and Arthur, Grace and Edith, sitting upon the broad
piazza as they had not sat in years, Grace a little apart from
the rest, and Edith between her husband and Richard, holding
a hand of each, and listening intently while the latter
told them how rumors of a celebrated Parisian oculist had
reached him in his wanderings; how he had sought the
rooms of that oculist, leaving them a more hopeful man
than when he entered; how the hope then enkindled
grew stronger month after month, until the thick folds of
darkness gave way to a creamy kind of haze, which hovered
for weeks over his horizon of sight, growing gradually
whiter and thinner, until faint outlines were discovered,
and to his unutterable joy he counted the window panes,
knowing then that sight was surely coming back. He did
not tell them how through all that terrible suspense Nina
seemed always with him; he would not like to confess
how superstitious he had become, fully believing that

Nina was his guardian angel, that she hovered near him,
and that the touch of her soft little hands had helped to
heal the wound gaping so cruelly when he last bade adieu
to his native land. Richard was not a spiritualist. He
utterly repudiated their wild theories, and built up one of
his own, equally wild and strange, but productive of no
evil, inasmuch as no one was admitted into his secret, or
suffered to know of his one acknowledged sphere where
Nina reigned supreme. This was something he kept to
himself, referring but once to Nina during his narrative,
and that when he said to Edith,

“You remember, darling, Nina told me in her letter
that she'd keep asking God to give me back my sight.”

Edith cared but little by whose agency this great cure
had been accomplished, and laying her head on Richard's
knee, just as a girl she used to do, she wept out her joy
for sight restored to her noble benefactor, reproaching him
for having kept the good news from them so carefully,
even shutting his eyes when he wrote to them so that his
writing should be natural, and the surprise when he did
return, the greater.

Meanwhile Grace's servant came up to accompany her
home, and she bade the happy group good night, her heart
beating faster than its wont as Richard said to her at parting,
“I was going to offer my services, but I see I am forestalled.
My usual luck, you know,” and his black eyes
rested a moment on her face and then wandered to where
Edith sat. Did he mean anything by this? Had the
waves of time, which had beaten and battered his heart
so long, brought it back at last to its first starting point,
Grace Elmendorff? Time only can tell. He believed his
youthful passion had died out years ago, that matrimony
was for him an utter impossibility.

He had been comparatively happy across the sea, and he
was happier still now that he was at home, wishing he
had come before, and wondering why it was that the sight

of Edith did not pain him, as he feared it would. He
liked to look at her, to hear her musical voice, to watch
her graceful movements as she flitted about the house, and
as the days and weeks went on he grew young again in
her society, until he was much like the Richard to whom
she once said, “I will be your wife,” save that his raven
hair was tinged with grey, making him, as some thought,
finer-looking than ever. To Arthur and Edith he was
like a dearly beloved brother; while to Dick and Nina he
was all the world. He was very proud of little Dick, but
Nina was his pet, as she was everybody's who knew her,
and she ere long learned to love him better, if possible,
than she did her father, calling him frequently “her oldest
papa,” and wondering in her childish way why he kissed
her so tenderly as often as she lisped out that dear name.

And now but little more remains to tell. It is four
months since Richard came home, and the hazy Indian
summer sun shines o'er the New England hills, bathing
Collingwood in its soft, warm rays, and falling upon the
tall bare trees and the withered grass below, carpeted
with leaves of many a bright hue. On the velvety sward,
which last summer showed so rich a green, the children
are racing up and down, Dick's cheeks glowing like the
scarlet foliage he treads beneath his feet, and Nina's fair
hair tossing in the autumn wind, which seems to blow less
rudely on the little girl than on her stronger older brother.
On one of the iron seats scattered over the lawn sits
Richard, watching them as they play, not moodily, not
mournfully, for grief and sorrow have no lodgment in the
once blind Richard's heart, and he verily believes that he
is as happy without Edith as he could possibly have been
with her. She is almost everything to him now that a
wife could be consulting his wishes before her own or Arthur's,
and making all else subservient to them. No royal
sovereign ever lorded it over his subjects more completely

than could Richard over Collingwood, if he chose, for master
and servants alike yield him unbounded deference;
but Richard is far too gentle to abuse the power vested in
his hands, and so he rules by perfect love, which knows
no shadow of distrust. The gift of sight has compensated
for all his olden pain, and often to himself he says, “I
would hardly be blind again for the sake of Edith's first
affections.”

He calls her Edith now, just as he used to do, and Edith
knows that only a scar is left as a memento of the fearful
sacrifice. The morning has broken at last, the darkness
passed away, and while basking in the full, rich daylight,
both Richard and Arthur, and Edith wonder if they are
the same to whom the world was once so dreary. Only
over Grace Atherton is any darkness brooding. She cannot
forget the peerless boon she threw away when she
deliberately said to Richard Harrington, “I will not walk
in your shadow,” and the love she once bore him is alive
in all its force, but so effectually concealed that few suspect
its existence.

Richard goes often to Brier Hill staying sometimes hours,
and Victor, with his opinion of the “gay widow” somewhat
changed, has more than once hinted at Collingwood how
he thinks these visits will end. But the servants scoffed
at the idea, while Arthur and Edith look curiously on,
half hoping Victor is right, and so that matter remains in
uncertainty.

Across the fields Grassy Spring still lies a mass of shapeless
ruins. Frequently has Arthur talked of rebuilding it
as a home for his children, but as Richard has always
opposed it and Edith is indifferent, he will probably remain
at Collingwood.

Away to the south, the autumn winds blow softly around
Sunnybank, where Edith's negroes are living as happy
under the new administration as the old, speaking often
of their beautiful mistress, who, when the winter snows

fall on the Bay State hills, will wend her way to the southward,
and Christmas fires will again be kindled upon the
hearthstones left desolate so many years. Nor is she,
whose little grave lies just across the field, forgotten. Enshrined
is her memory within the hearts of all who knew
and loved her, while away to the northward where the cypress
and willow mark the resting-place of Shannondale's
dead, a costly marble rears its graceful column, pointing
far upward to the sky, the home of her whose name that
marble bears. “Nina.” That is all. No laudations
deeply cut tell what she was or where she died. “Nina.”
Nothing more. And yet this single word has a power to
touch the deepest, tenderest feelings of two hearts at
least, Arthur's and Edith's—speaking to them of the little
golden-haired girl who crossed so innocently their pathway,
striving hard to efface all prints of her footsteps, caring
to the last for her “Arthur boy,” and the “Miggie”
she loved so well, and calling to them, as it were, even after
the rolling river was safely forded, and she was landed beside
the still waters in the bright, green fields of Eden.

And now to the sweet little girl and the noble man who,
through the mazy labyrinths of Darkness and of Daylight,
have grown so strongly into our love, whose faces were
familiar as our own, whose names were household words,
over whose sorrows our tears have fallen like rain, and in
whose joys we have rejoiced, we bid a final adieu. Farewell
to thee, beautiful Nina. “Earth hath none fairer lost.
Heaven none purer gained.” Farewell to thee forever,
and blessings, rich and rare, distil like evening dew upon
the dear head of the brave-hearted, generous hero Richard
Harrington.