Tempest and Sunshine. Mary Jane Holmes

what is it to me if he does like Fanny? I am bound fast, but oh, if I were free, I'd compass heaven and earth to secure him." Her wish to be free was soon realized.

      That afternoon, when the Sea Gull came up from Louisville, it brought home her husband, wearied, worn out and sick. He took his bed, and never left his room again until strong men carried him out and laid him down to sleep in the silent graveyard. The close of his life was calm and peaceful, for he had early chosen the better part, and he looked upon the grave as but a stepping stone from earth to heaven.

      His life was a dreary pilgrimage, for though he possessed for his young, giddy wife, a strong, ardent affection, he had long known that it was not returned, and he felt that she would be happier if he were dead. She, however, paid him as much attention during his illness as the gay life she led would allow; but she was often away, and night after night was he left alone with his Bible and his God, while she was in the midst of some fashionable amusement. Her neglect was, however, partly made up to him by the kind care of Fanny, who gave him all the time she could possibly spare from her school duties. Mrs. Carrington found it very convenient [pg 065] to call upon her, whenever she wished to be absent, and hour after hour the fair young girl sat by the sick man's bedside, employed either with her needle, her books or drawing. Mr. Carrington was a fine scholar and gave her much assistance in her studies.

      When he grew too weak to read, she would read to him from the Bible, stopping occasionally, while he explained some obscure passage, or endeavored to impress on her mind some solemn truth. Thus were the seeds of righteousness sown, which afterward sprang up and bore fruit unto everlasting life.

      At last the chilling dews came upon his head, his eye grew dim with the mists of death, and then he laid his cold, white hand on Fanny's head and prayed most earnestly that heaven's choicest blessings, both here and hereafter, might descend upon one who had so kindly smoothed his dark pathway down to the valley of death. A few words of affectionate farewell to his wife and he was gone. His crushed, aching heart had ceased to beat and in a few days the green sod was growing above his early grave.

      Fanny begged so earnestly to have him buried by the side of Mr. Wilmot that Mrs. Carrington finally consented, and the two, who had never seen each other on earth, now lay peacefully side by side. When the springtime came, the same fair hands planted flowers over the graves of her brothers, as she loved to call the two men, each of whom had blessed her with his dying breath. Thither would she often go with Dr. Lacey, who was each day learning to love her more and more.

      Mrs. Carrington contented herself with having a few hysterical fits, shedding a few tears, dressing herself in an expensive suit of mourning, and erecting to the memory of her husband a magnificent monument. When Mr. Middleton saw the latter, he said, "Why the plague can't Dick have as good a gravestun as that young lieutenant? He desarves it jest as much"; so out came his purse, and when Mrs. Carrington went next to visit the costly marble at her husband's grave, she was chagrined to see by its side a still more splendid one. But there was no help for it, so she had to endure it in silence, consoling herself with thinking how becomingly she would dress and how many conquests she would make, when the term of her mourning should have expired!