The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

"We all of us are become wonderful story-tellers. Now it comes to pass that I have a little story to tell; my time is come at last"; and, watching every muscle of her face, and all the little veins of feeling that I had learned so well, I began.

Carefully I let in the light, until, without a shock, Miss Axtell learned that the room below contained Bernard McKey.

"They did not understand me," she said, "or they would not have brought me here thus."

After a long, long lull, Miss Axtell thanked me for telling her alone, where no one else could see how the knowledge played around her heart. Dear Miss Axtell, sitting there, in my father's house, only last March, with a holy joy stealing up, in spite of her endeavor to hide it from my eyes even, and suffusing her white face with warm, rosy tints, dear Miss Axtell, I hoped your day-dawn drawing near.

Miss Axtell said "she hated to have other people see her feel"; she asked "would I manage it for her, that no one should be nigh when she met Mr. McKey?"

It was that very evening that papa, calling Sophie and me into his room, told us a little of the former history of the people in his house.

"I want you to help me, children," he said; "ladies manage such things better than we men know how to."

I said, close to papa's astonished hearing, "I know all about it; just let me take care of this mission"; and he appointed me diplomate on the occasion.

Sophie was strangely disconcerted; she had such fearsome awe of the Axtells, "she couldn't think of interfering," she said, "unless to make gruel or some condiment."

I coaxed Miss Lettie to have her tea in her own room: she certainly did not look like going down. Under pretext of having the care of her, I seated sister Sophie at my station, and thus I had the house, outside of the tea-room, under my control.

"Come down now; don't lose time," I said to Miss Axtell, running up to her, half breathless from my haste.

"What for? What is it?" she said.

"Papa is anticipating some grand effort in the managerial line from me, regarding two people in his house, and I don't choose to manage at all. Mr. McKey is waiting to see you. I knocked to see, as I came up, and all the family are at tea."

I went down with her. There was no trembling, only a stately calm in her manner, as she drew near.

I knocked. Mr. McKey answered, "Come in," in his low, musical, variant tones. I turned the knob; the door opened. A moment later, I stood alone within the hall. I walked up and down, a true sentinel on true duty, that no enemy might draw near to hear the treaty of true peace which I knew was being written out by the Recording Angel for these two souls. They must have had a pleasant family-talk in the tea-room, they stayed so long.

At last I heard footsteps coming. I told Miss Lettie, thinking that she would leave; but no, she said "she would stay awhile"; and so, later on, the two were sitting there in quietness of joy, when my father came up to see his patient. Mr. Axtell was with him. They went in; indifferent words were spoken,—until, was it Abraham Axtell that I saw as I kept up my walking in the hall? What mysterious change had come to transfigure his face so that I scarcely believed the evidence of my own eyes? He came to the door and said, "Will you come in, Miss Percival?" I obeyed his request. He closed the door, and turned the key.

"In the presence of those against whom he had sinned he would confess his fault," were his first words; and he went on, he of whom they had asked a pardon, and drew a fiery picture of all that he had done, of the murder that he had doubly committed, for he had made another soul to bear his sin.

It was terrible to hear him accuse himself. It was touching to see this proud Axtell begging forgiveness. He offered the fatal cup to my father,—

"Therein lies the evidence of my murder. It was I who killed your daughter, Doctor Percival. Although no court on earth condemns me, the Judge of all the Earth holds me responsible for her death."

Doctor Percival tried to reason with him, said words of comfort, but he heeded them not: they might as well have fallen on the vacant air.

"Blessings be upon you two! if, out of suffering, God will send joy, it will be yours," Mr. Axtell said; and he offered his hand to Mr. McKey and his sister, as one does when taking farewell.

He went from them to my father, and offered his hand doubtingly, as if afraid it might be refused.

Papa took it in both his own. An instant later Mr. Axtell came to me. Surely he had no forgiveness to ask of Anna Percival. No; he only said, and I am certain that no one heard, save me, "I thank God that He has not let me shadow your life. Farewell!"

He left the room. We all looked, one at another, in that dim astonishment which is never expressed in words. Papa broke the spell by putting on fresh coals.

Miss Lettie said, "Poor Abraham!" and yet she looked so happy, so as I had never seen her yet!

A few moments later Jeffy came rushing in, his eyes dilate with amazement.

"The gentleman is gone," he said, "gone entirely."

It was even so. Mr. Axtell had gone, no one knew whither. It was late at night, when a letter came for Doctor Percival by a special messenger.

I never saw it. I only know that in it Mr. Axtell explained his intention of absence, and wrote, for his sister's sake, to make arrangements for her future. She was to return to Redleaf, at such time as she chose to go hence, with Mr. McKey; and to Aaron's and Sophie's care Mr. Axtell committed her.

Papa gave the letter to Miss Lettie. She read it in silence, and her face was immovable. I could divine nothing from it.

Last March! how long the time seems! Scarce six months have gone since I gave the record, and now the summer is dying.

I thought Miss Axtell would have ventured out on the bridge, far and high, ere now; but no, she says "the time is not yet,—that she will wait until Abraham comes home"; and Bernard McKey is content.

The solemn old house is closed. No longer Katie opens the door and Kino looks around the corner. Kino died, perhaps of grief: such deaths have been.

Miss Axtell has put off the old Dead-Sea-wave face. She has just put a calm, beautiful, happy one in at my door, to ask Anna Percival "why she sits and writes, when the last days of summer are drawing nigh?" Miss Axtell stays with me, and a great contentment sings to those who have ears to hear through all her life. If only Mr. Axtell would come home! Why does he stay away so long, and take such a dreary line of travel, where old earth is seamed in memoriam of man's rebellion? I'll send to him the althea-bud, when next his sister writes.

The leaves are fallen now. Winter is almost come. There is no need that I should send out the althea-fragment. Mr. Axtell wrote to me. Last night I received these words only,—and yet what need I more?

"God hath given me peace. I am coming home."

THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVI

Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read
A volume of the Law, in which it said,
"No man shall look upon my face and live."
And as he read, he prayed that God would give
His faithful servant grace with mortal eye
To look upon His face and yet not die.

Then fell a sudden shadow on the page,
And lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age,
He saw the Angel of Death before him stand,
Holding a naked sword in his right hand.
Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran,
With trembling voice he said, "What wilt thou here?"
The Angel answered, "Lo! the time draws near
When thou must die; yet first, by God's decree,
Whate'er thou askest shall be granted thee."
Replied the Rabbi, "Let these living eyes
First look upon my place in Paradise."

Then said the Angel, "Come with me and look."
Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book,
And rising, and uplifting his gray head,
"Give me thy sword," he to the Angel said,
"Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way."