The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

"It wasn't her fault," said she, one day, quite suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"That she didn't love David in the way he loved her. I don't think she deceived him. He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had no reason for being any other than kind to him. I believe she felt badly about it, herself. I've seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while. Maybe, though, it's because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her. I wish she'd come,—it's so lonely."

And it was lonely. It was like remaining in the theatre after the play is over and the actors retired. For Warren Luce, too, was gone. His visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship.

"How would it have been, if he hadn't come?" I asked myself. "Might David have been happy? Might she have loved him as 'Jane' loved? And how much of her heart had the Doctor's boy carried away? Perhaps his power over her was greater than she would own,—greater than she knew herself. Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her. He might even be with her among the mountains."

Thus I debated, thus I questioned.

CHAPTER III

Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely house. She wanted company.

And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other bewitchments of youth and beauty?

And she looked more beautiful than ever,—I suppose, because she came in a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast from her such a precious thing as love.

When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,—for the sick girl, in her weakest state, craved childish things.

That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful.

But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker. The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded.

One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary Ellen,—

"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she described the miner's hut in which she had seen him.

This was in the first part of June.

On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands.

It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength, none of whom returned.

"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up beneath one roof."

"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the wall.

"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over her, weeping.

"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,—"nobody to take care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no grave!"

'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself, "Deep waters! deep waters!"

The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,—

"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look up. Don't forget God!"

Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him down. But I don't think he ever forgot God.

A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room for a little while.

"Is she able?" I asked.

"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it, and she means the sea."

'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and thirsted for a good look at the sea."

Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright.

She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that moment pass away from us,—that she might, in some beautiful form, a dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above.

But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed, from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that particular night such a peaceful, placid look.

"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each.

"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the smell of the hay to come in at the windows.

"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am."

Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her Heavenly Father.

The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She looked up with a strange smile, and said,—

"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come."

It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?"

"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die."

"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room.

Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading and praying.

She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.

"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew near the bedside,—"I know what made me talk so yesterday.".

She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost.

"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in me—which revived—for a moment—at the last—and then put forth all its strength. Since I have seen David—it seems pleasant—to go. I can't tell,—you wouldn't understand,—I couldn't, if the separation—hadn't begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face confirmed the words as they fell from her lips.

She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and fainter, but seemingly in no distress.

Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands together, she cried out, joyfully,—