 | I. My third book |  |
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
| I. My third book | |