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Page 68
"After that Grace supported herself by dress-making and teaching music;
and some two years ago, when we heard that Phil had been killed by a
mine's caving in, and that he had left a little fortune to her and
Nannie, I, as his executor and her friend, induced her to take and use
it,--which she did, with simplicity and thankfulness and with her heart
full of pity and love for poor Phil. Yes, poor Phil! those five or six
years must have been full of misery to him, and he was probably thankful
when the end came. We never heard from him until after his death. There
was a letter that came to me with the will, that had been written long
before. None but they two know what was in it; and I, for one, do not
want to inquire."
George sat for a long while in silence, looking at the glowing coals in
the huge reservoir stove. Neither Perry nor I cared to interrupt his
revery. At last he roused himself.
"Well, boys," he said, "it is late: I think we had better go. It is all
over now, and life has gone on calmly for years. Other people have
forgotten that there ever were such persons as Phil or Herbert."
When Perry and I reached our room we found it was almost three o'clock.
George had walked with us to the door, and very little had been said
between us. I took a cigarette and lay down on the bed. "Perry," I said,
as he was lighting the gas.
"Sur to you," he answered, in a way he had of imitating a certain
barkeeper of our acquaintance.
"What do you think of George?"
"You know what I think of him as well as I do."
"Yes; but I mean in connection with this that he has told us."
"I think he acted just like himself all the way through."
"Don't you think he has been in love with Mrs. Herbert from the first?"
"Am I in the habit of imagining such nonsense?"
"You may think it nonsense," I answered, with the quiet fervor of
conviction, "but I am sure it is nothing but the real state of the
case."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Perry, throwing his boots into a corner; and therewith
the discussion closed.
About a week ago I had a letter from him, though, in which he recalled
this circumstance and acknowledged that I had been in the right. "They
are going to be married in the fall," he wrote. "I hope they may be
happy, and I suppose they will be; but I don't think Mrs. Herbert ought
to marry him unless she loves him; and I am fearful that she only thinks
to reward long years of faithful affection. George deserves more than
that." This was a good deal for Perry to manage to say. He usually keeps
as far away from such subjects as he well can,--which is partly the
reason, I think, that his opinion thereon is not greatly to be trusted.
As for me, I am sure George's wife will love him as much as he
deserves,--though this is almost an infinite amount,--and that she has
not been far from loving him from the beginning. I have bought a pair of
vases to send them; and I expect that Miss Lucretia Knowles will say,
when she learns how much they cost, that I was very extravagant. Not
that Lu is close or stingy at all; but she has promised to wait until I
have made a start in life, and is naturally impatient for me to get on
as rapidly as possible.
FRANK PARKE.
THE WOOD-THRUSH AT SUNSET.
Lover of solitude,
Poet and priest of nature's mysteries,
If but a step intrude,
Thy oracle is mute, thy music dies.
Oft have I lightly wooed
Sweet Poesy to give me pause of pain,
Oft in her singing mood
Sought to surprise her haunt, and sought in vain.
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