Signing the Contract, and What It Cost. Finley Martha

God’s will be done. He knows best. He will comfort you.”

      The quick ear of the girl scarcely caught the low-breathed words, and with the last Mrs. Kemper fainted.

      At the same moment a gentleman came hastily in and stepped to the bedside.

      Instinctively Floy comprehended his errand, even ere he laid his finger on the pulse or raised the shawl that half concealed the shattered form.

      She rose, outwardly calm and collected.

      “Can my mother live?” she asked.

      “For some hours,” he said, looking pityingly into the grief-stricken face of his questioner.

      “Where is she hurt?”

      “Poor child! how shall I tell you? Her lower limbs are completely crushed, and even amputation would not save her life.”

      Floy caught at the bedstead for support, a low cry of heart-breaking anguish bursting from her lips. “Oh, mother, mother! And my father!” she gasped, “oh, where is he?”

      “The gentleman who occupied the same seat with this lady? Ah, my dear child, he is done with pain.”

      The girl sank upon her knees again, hiding her face in her hands and trembling in every fibre. So sudden, so terrible were these successive blows that the very earth seemed slipping from beneath her feet.

      “Dear Lord, her heart is overwhelmed; lead her to the Rock that is higher than she.”

      The words were spoken by an old woman in homely attire who was assisting the physician in his efforts to restore Mrs. Kemper to consciousness. The tones were very tender and pitiful, and the aged hand rested lightly for an instant upon the bowed head.

      “Oh, could not one have been spared to me?” cried Floy in a burst of agony. “Fatherless! motherless! oh, that I too had been taken!”

      “Dear child, He will be your Father and your Friend, and life will grow sweet again, and now He knows and feels for all your pain.”

      A groan of agonizing pain came from the crushed form on the bed.

      Floy rose and bent over her, the hot tears falling like rain upon the pallid, death-like face.

      “Mother, mother! how can I bear to see you suffer so?”

      The white, quivering lips tried to wreathe themselves into a smile, and the anguished eyes looked tenderly into hers.

      “Beloved child, it will—soon—be over, and I—shall be at home—indeed.”

      Her eyes sought the doctor’s face. “How long—”

      “A very few hours at the most.”

      “Then leave me alone with my child,” she said, speaking in a stronger voice than before.

      The physician gave Floy some directions in regard to the administering of restoratives, and he and his assistant withdrew.

      Left alone together, hand clasped in hand, mother and daughter gazed tenderly, mournfully into each other’s eyes, silent tears trickling down the cheeks of both. Then gathering up all her failing energies for the task, Mrs. Kemper told Floy in a few brief sentences the story of her adoption and all they had heard from her true mother’s lips in the little shanty inn at Clearfield Station.

      Some things she said which, though they fell almost unheeded upon Floy’s ears at the time, afterward, when she had come to care for that unknown mother, were a great comfort. It was pleasant to have learned from the dear dying voice that she who gave her being was unmistakably a lady by birth and breeding, whom even a stranger recognized as gentle and lovable.

      “I have never been able to remember without a pang of regret and remorse her agony of grief in parting from you,” said Mrs. Kemper. “We have never heard from her, and I think she must have died soon after, for she seemed then in an almost dying condition.”

      “Oh, then why tell me of her? why, dearest, darling mother, rob me of the belief that I am your own child—yours and father’s?” sobbed the heart-broken girl.

      The dying eyes looked into hers with yearning tenderness.

      “Precious one,” she whispered faintly, for her strength was waning, “I would spare you every unneeded pang. But,” she went on with frequent pauses for breath, “the knowledge may some day be of use to you. You may find relatives, my poor, lonely darling. You will find the deed of gift among your father’s papers; your mother’s name is signed to it. There is a will, my husband told me, leaving everything to you and me, all to be yours at my death; so, my—”

      “Oh, mother, darling mother, what do I care for that now—now when I have lost my father, and you too are going from me!” cried the girl in an agony of grief.

      “Nothing now, I know,” the mother said with pitying tenderness, “but I am glad my darling will not be left penniless; it would be hard for you to earn your own bread. And the dear home, Floy, will be yours.”

      Her eyes closed, but the lips still moved, and Floy, bending over her, caught the broken, faintly murmured words, “Home—many mansions—my Father’s house—” Then all was stillness and silence.

      “Mother, oh, mother! speak to me once more!” cried the girl, pressing passionate kisses on the pale brow where the dews of death already gathered. “Is it well with you, darling mother? No fear? No doubt, no darkness?”

      A beautiful smile played about the dying lips, and again a faint murmur reached the daughter’s intently listening ear: “All is peace—peace—the sweetest peace; I know that my Redeemer liveth. Trust Him, trust Him; He will—never—leave you.”

      A gentle sigh, and Floy knew that she was alone. No wail of sorrow broke the deep hush of that death-chamber, no tears fell from the burning eyes of the solitary mourner. They found her with the still form clasped in her arms, her dead mother’s head pillowed upon her bosom, the tearless eyes gazing with mingled love and anguish upon the calm, sweet face on whose unruffled brow Peace had set its signet. The lovely smile yet lingered about the pale lips which to Floy’s ear seemed ever whispering, “All is peace, peace, the sweetest peace.”

CHAPTER V.

       BETROTHED.

       Table of Contents

      “We all do fade as a leaf.”—Isaiah 64:6

      “My Adah! let me call thee mine.”—Byron.

      “Floy!”

      Only a word, yet what a world of love and tender sympathy spoke in the tone and in the touch of the hand that gently caressed her hair.

      The girl started and looked up.

      “Oh, Espy!”

      Her cheek dropped again upon the head resting on her bosom, and now the blessed tears came in a flood.

      Espy, just returning from college, had been scarcely an hour at home when the news came flashing over the wires that about five miles away a terrible railroad accident had occurred, in which several prominent citizens of Cranley, among whom were the Kempers, had been killed or wounded.

      Nearly frantic with fear for Floy, Espy rushed to the depot, and learning that a special train would be sent immediately to carry aid to the sufferers, hurried home again with the tidings.

      Mrs. Alden had already packed a basket with such things as she thought might be needed, tied on her hat, and, with a shawl on her arm, stood in the doorway anxiously looking for her son’s return.

      He came running, caught up the basket, and, giving her his arm, began to retrace his steps, merely saying in a voice hoarse with emotion, “We must make all haste, mother, or we’ll be left.”

      “Floy?”