The Rector of St. Mark's Part 18

Leaving her room she is soon by her father's side.

"I'll have to go early, father, dear. It will be very crowded, and Gerald is waiting. His wife is going to stay with you during my absence."

"How well you look, my daughter! Why, really, you are getting young again!"

"This is my birthday, father. I am a maiden of no particular age to the public, but I whisper in your ear privately," she joyously said; and, suiting the action to the word, bent down, whispered, kissed him, and was gone.

"How time flies! But she is still very beautiful. Heaven grant my prayers may be answered. She deserves to be happy; and when I am gone she will be very lonely, and then feel keenly my harsh treatment," he murmured.

Wearily pa.s.sed the hours until he heard her light step on the stairs.

She came in. He thought there seemed a shadow on her face, but she came forward, and said, pleasantly:

"Well, father, you are likely to keep your daughter. I heard Ernest. I had not expected too much; he was grandly eloquent. He has altered in his looks; he seems much older, and is quite gray; mental work and hard study, he says."

"Then you saw him, and spoke to him! What do you mean by saying I shall keep you? Is he mar----"

"Yes," she replied, before he had finished his question. "He introduced me to his daughter, a little miss of about twelve; so you were right when you said that men were too sensible to suffer for or from love. He must have married in two years after he left us. Gerald left little Constance and me in the library, and went and brought him to see us. We were with him only a very short time, when he was sent for. He excused himself, and bade us good-day. Now, father, I will remove my wrappings, and order dinner."

Day after day pa.s.sed on, and Constance had schooled herself to think of Ernest only as a happy husband and father. She did not blame him for taking a companion. He was away from all kindred and friends, and she had given him no hope to induce him to wait through all these years for her.

One day, just a week after their meeting at Congress, she was sitting reading to her father, when a servant entered, and handed a card. She read, Ernest Ellwood!

Paler for a few moments, and tightly pressed were the sweet lips. She did not rise from her seat, until she had communed with her heart.

Now, she thought, I must call up all my fort.i.tude and self-control, and prove to Ernest, to my father, and, more than all, to myself, that my heart is not troubled!

"Father," she said, "Ernest is below. He is waiting, probably, to inquire after you. I told him you had long been an invalid. Will you see him?"

"I would rather not, darling, unless you wish it. Go down a while, and if he must come up, let me know first."

Slowly she descended the steps, pa.s.sed through the long hall, and entered the drawing-room, advancing with quiet dignity to welcome the distinguished representative.

He listened a moment to her words, so calm and cold; then, clasping her in his arms, he drew her down beside him, and said:

"Oh, my darling! thank Heaven, I find you still Constance Lyle!"

She tried to draw herself away from his side, but his arms held her tightly, and his hand clasped hers. His eyes were gazing so earnestly and lovingly in hers, as in by-gone days. She tried to speak, but he said:

"Nay, my beautiful love, you must not move or speak until you have heard me through, and then I shall await your verdict. I know you think it so strange that I have not been to you before. I have been the victim of a miserable mistake. The day I entered this city I walked past here to catch a glimpse of you, perhaps. As I neared the door, I beheld seated on the steps that pretty little girl that I afterward saw with you. I stopped, spoke to her, and asked her name.

Constance, she told me, and her father's, Gerald. Oh, my love, the long years of suspense were ended to me then! I cannot tell you how dark the world seemed to me then. I struggled on, however, with my sorrows. Then I met you. Your being with Gerald and having the little one with you only too truly proved that my conjecture was right. I saw you, as I believed, the happy wife of Gerald, and knew no difference until this morning. When I met him then, he stopped and urged me to come and see him. I asked after his wife, and remarked that time had changed her but very little, when, to my amazement, he said he did not know I had ever met Mrs. Moreton. Then came the explanation. I parted with the n.o.ble fellow only a few moments ago, and here I am now. Tell me, love, that all my waiting--never wandering from my love for you for an hour, has not been in vain. Speak, love!"

"Ernest Ellwood, what mean you by speaking to me thus? Allow me to rise. Your mind is certainly very much affected. Nothing but insanity can excuse this language to me. I will order the carriage to convey you home to your wife and daughter."

"My wife--oh, yes, now I know. Gerald told me. We have all been very busy blundering. My darling, I have no wife or daughter. Louise is only mine by adoption. Her father was my dearest friend. This little one was placed in my arms, an orphan, when only three years old--and she knew no parent but myself. Can I go to your father, love?"

She no longer tried to release herself from his arms. Lower and lower drooped the beautiful head until it was pillowed on his breast. He felt her heart throbbing against his own, and almost bursting with its fulness of joy. He was answered--rewarded for all the years of waiting.

At length she raised her head. In her eyes he saw all the love of years beaming there.

"At last, my Ernest," she said. "I must go to father first and prepare him to see you."

Springing lightly up the stairs, she entered the room and stood beside her father's armchair.

He saw her beaming look, and said:

"What is it, Constance? What has brought this great joy to you? You look so happy."

"Father, we have all been under a great mistake. Ernest has never been married. That was his adopted daughter. He is waiting to see you; may I bring him up?"

"Yes, yes. Thank G.o.d! my prayers are answered."

In a few moments she stands before him, with her hand clasped in Ernest's.

"Here I am again, Mr. Lyle, as in years gone by, pleading for your blessing on our love. May I have her now, after all these years of waiting?"

"Ernest Moreton, I am profoundly thankful to Heaven for sparing me to see this day. Welcome back to your home and old friends, and welcome to the hand of my daughter. Take her; she has been a loving, patient, dutiful child. She has brightened and cheered my path for a long, weary time, and now I resign this blessing to you, and beg your forgiveness for these long years, lost to both, which might have been pa.s.sed happily together."

"Not resign, but only share with me, this blessing; she shall never leave you, sir," replied Ernest.

"Father, do not speak of years lost; they have not been. Ernest would not have gone away, and devoted himself to study, if we had been united then; just think then what his adopted State would have lost!

and I have been cheering you--think what you would have lost without your little Constance! Nay, there is nothing lost; all is gain, and simply by keeping G.o.d's command, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.'"

"Let me come in to rejoice with you all, and make my speech,"

exclaimed the n.o.ble Gerald, grasping the hand of each. "I say that they are worthy of each other. He by his earnest, unwavering love for his lady fair, and earnest, untiring endeavors to serve his State--who has now won the respect and confidence of his countrymen--he alone is worthy of the woman ever constant to her early love, yet never faltering in her chosen path of filial duty."

WHY HE WAS MERCIFUL.

BY FRANCES HENSHAW BADEN.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord--its various tone; Each spring--its various bias; Then at the balance let's be mute-- We never can adjust it; What's done, we partly may compute-- We know not what's resisted.--ROBERT BURNS.

"How is it, my old friend, that you are so very lenient to these young thieves? Your sentence was very unexpected. Every one thought you would, at least, send them to the State's prison for three or four years. The young rascals were amazed themselves. The House of Correction for six months has not much terror for them. Do you know that it has become a common saying among the members of the bar that our venerated and respected judge has a strong sympathy--in a word, a fellow-feeling--for all young thieves! I think you will have to commit a few of those gentlemen for contempt."

"I do not wonder, at all, Mr. Archer, at any, indeed, every one, thinking and saying as much," said Mrs. Morley, the wife of the judge, just entering the room in time to hear the concluding part of Mr.

Archer's remarks. "Only a few months ago the judge could not possibly help sentencing a boy to the State's prison; but, before the time for entry came, he succeeded in getting his pardon; and, more than this, he has brought him here, into his own home-circle, with the idea of reforming him."

"My dear wife, have you any cause, so far, to think I shall fail? Has not the boy proved grateful and worthy?" asked the judge, in a mild, though very sad, voice.

"Yes, yes; but how you can have any patience with such characters, I cannot imagine," answered his wife.

"Sit still, Archer, if you have no engagement; I am going to tell my wife a little story, which will probably explain my charity toward those unfortunate youths that you have spoken of; and, indeed, all such. You, as my oldest and most valued friend, shall share the hearing, if you wish."

"Many thanks for the privilege, with my deep appreciation for your kindness in thinking of me thus," returned Mr. Archer, warmly, at the same time resuming his seat.