“Beautiful tyrant—fiend angelical—
Dove-feathered raven!—wolf-devouring lamb—
Oh, serpent heart—hid in a flowering cave,
Did e’er deceit dwell in so fair a mansion!”—Shakspeare.

“Pray for the dead.
Why for the dead, who are at rest?
Pray for the living, in whose breast
The struggle between right and wrong
Is raging terrible and strong.”—Longfellow.

“Are you willing to remain with her alone, all night?” asked the young doctor.

Helen glanced towards the figure reclining on the bed, whose length appeared almost supernatural, and whose appearance was rendered more gloomy by the dun-colored counterpane that enveloped it—and though her countenance changed, she answered, “Yes.”

“Have you no fears that the old superstitions of your childhood will resume their influence over your imagination, in the stillness of the midnight hour?”

“I wish to subject myself to the trial. I am not quite sure of myself. I know there is no real danger, and it is time that I should battle single-handed with all imaginary foes.”

“But supposing your parents should object?”

“You must tell them how very ill she is, and how much she wishes me to remain with her. I think they will rejoice in my determination—rejoice that their poor, weak Helen has any energy of purpose, any will or power to be useful.”

“If you knew half your strength, half your power, Helen, I fear you would abuse it.”

A bright flame flashed up from the dark, serene depths of his eyes, and played on Helen’s downcast face. She had seen its kindling, and now felt its warmth glowing in her cheek, and in her inmost heart. The large, old clock behind the door, struck the hour loudly, with its metallic hands. Arthur started and looked at his watch.

“I did not think it was so late,” he exclaimed, rising in haste. “I have a patient to visit, whom I promised to be with before this time. Do you know, Helen, we have been talking at least two hours by this fireside? Miss Thusa slumbers long.”

He went to the bedside, felt of the sleeper’s pulse, listened attentively to her deep, irregular breathing, and then returned to Helen.

“The opiate she has taken will probably keep her in a quiet state during the night—if not, you will recollect the directions I have given—and administer the proper remedies. Does not your courage fail, now I am about to leave you? Have you no misgivings now?”

“I don’t know. If I have, I will not express them. I am resolved on self-conquest, and your doubts of my courage only serve to strengthen my resolution.”

Arthur smiled—“I see you have a will of your own, Helen, under that gentle, child-like exterior, to which mine is forced to bend. But I will not suffer you to be beyond the reach of assistance. I will send a woman to sleep in the kitchen, whom you can call, if you require her aid. As I told you before, I do not apprehend any immediate danger, though I do not think she will rise from that bed again.”

Helen sighed, and tears gathered in her eyes. She accompanied Arthur to the door, that she might put the strong bar across it, which was Miss Thusa’s substitute for a lock.

“Perhaps I may call on my return,” said he, “but it is very doubtful. Take care of yourself and keep warm. And if any unfavorable change takes place, send the woman for me. And now good-night—dear, good, brave Helen. May God bless, and angels watch over you.”

He pressed her hand, wrapped his cloak around him, and left Helen to her solitary vigils. She lifted the massy bar with trembling hands, and slid it into the iron hooks, fitted to receive it. Her hands trembled, but not from fear, but delight. Arthur had called her “dear and brave”—and long after she had reseated herself by the lonely hearth, the echo of his gentle, manly accents, seemed floating round the walls.

The illness of Miss Thusa was very sudden. She had risen in the morning in usual health, and pursued until noon her customary occupation—when, all at once, as she told the young doctor, “it seemed as if a knife went through her heart, and a wedge into her brain—and she was sure it was a death-stroke.” For the first time, in the course of her long life, she was obliged to take her bed, and there she lay in helplessness and loneliness, unable to summon relief. The young doctor called in the afternoon as a friend, and found his services imperatively required as a physician. The only wish she expressed was to have Helen with her, and as soon as he had relieved the sufferings of his patient, Arthur brought Helen to the Hermitage. When she arrived, Miss Thusa was under the influence of an opiate, but opening her heavy eyes, a ray of light emanated from the dim, gray orbs, as Helen, pale and awe-struck, approached her bedside. She was appalled at seeing that powerful frame so suddenly prostrated—she was shocked at the change a few hours had wrought in those rough, but commanding features. The large eye-balls looked sunken, and darkly shaded below, while a wan, gray tint, melting off into a bluish white on the temples, was spread over the face.

“You will stay with me to-night, my child,” said she, in a voice strangely altered. “I’ve got something to tell you—and the time is come.”

“Yes. I will stay with you as long as you wish, Miss Thusa,” replied Helen, passing her hand softly over the hoary looks that shaded the brow of the sufferer. “I will nurse you so tenderly, that you will soon be well again.”

“Good child—blessed child!” murmured she, closing her eyes beneath the slumberous weight of the anodyne, and sinking into a deep sleep.

And now Helen sat alone, watching the aged friend, whose strongly-marked and peculiar character had had so great an influence on her own. For awhile the echo of Arthur’s parting words made so much music in her ear, it drowned the harsh, solemn ticking of the old clock, and stole like a sweet lullaby over her spirit. But gradually the ticking sounded louder and louder, and her loneliness pressed heavily upon her. There was a little, dark, walnut table, standing on three curiously wrought legs, in a corner of the room. On this a large Bible, covered with dark, linen cloth, was laid, and on the top of this Miss Thusa’s spectacles, with the bows crossing each other, like the stiffened arms of a corpse. Helen could not bear to look upon those spectacles, which had always seemed to her an inseparable part of Miss Thusa, lying so still and melancholy there. She took them up reverently, and laid them on a shelf, then drawing the table near the fire, or rather carrying it, so as not to awaken the sleeper, she opened the sacred book. The first words which happened to meet her eye, were—

“Where is God, my Maker, who giveth me songs in the night?”

The pious heart of the young girl thrilled as she read this beautiful and appropriate text.

“Surely, oh God, Thou art here,” was the unspoken language of that young, believing heart, “here in this lonely cottage, here by this bed of sickness, and here also in this trembling, fearing, yet trusting spirit. In every life-beat throbbing in my veins, Thy awful steps I hear. Yet Thou canst not come, Thou canst not go, for Thou art ever near, unseen, yet felt, an all pervading, glorious presence.”

Had any one seen Helen, seated by that solitary hearth, with her hands clasped over those holy pages, her mild, devotional eyes raised to Heaven, the light quivering in a halo round her brow, they might have imagined her a young Saint, or a young Sister of Charity, ministering to the sufferings of that world whose pleasures she had abjured.

A low knock was heard at the door. It must be the young doctor, for who else would call at such an hour? Yet Helen hesitated and trembled, holding her breath to listen, thinking it possible it was but the pressure of the wind, or some rat tramping within the walls. But when the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp, entered the narrow passage, closing the door softly after her, removed the massy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe, she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight of this transcendently handsome young man.

“Is terror the only emotion I can inspire—after so long an absence, too?” he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. “Forgive me if I have alarmed you, but forbidden your father’s house, and knowing your presence here, I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I leave these regions, perhaps forever.”

“Impossible, Mr. Clinton,” cried Helen, recovering, in some measure, from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon’s revolving flame. “I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I cannot ask you to come in. Besides,” she added, with a dignity that enchanted the bold intruder, “if I cannot see you in my father’s house, it is not proper that I see you at all.” She drew back quickly, uttering a hasty “Good-night,” and was about to close the door, when Clinton glided in, shutting the door after him.

“You must hear me, Helen,” said he, in that sweet, low voice, peculiar to himself. “Had it not been for you I should never have returned. I told you once that I loved you, but if I loved you then I must adore you now. You are ten thousand times more lovely. Helen, you do not know how charming, how beautiful you are. You do not know the enthusiastic devotion, the deathless passion you have inspired.”

“I cannot conceive of such depths of falsehood,” exclaimed Helen, her timid eyes kindling with indignation; “all this have you said to Mittie, and far more, and she, mistaken girl, believes you true.”

“I deceived myself, alas!” cried he, in a tone of bitter sorrow. “I thought I loved her, for I had not yet seen and known her gentler, lovelier sister. Forgive me, Helen—love is not the growth of our will. ’Tis a flower that springs spontaneously in the human heart, of celestial fragrance, and destined to immortal bloom.”

“If I thought you really loved me,” said Helen, in a softened tone, shrinking from the fascination of his glance, and the sorcery of his voice, “I should feel great and exceeding sorrow—for it would be in vain. But the love that I have imagined is of a very different nature. Slowly kindled, it burns with steady and unceasing glory, unchanging as the sun, and eternal as the soul.”

Helen paused with a burning flush, fearful that she had revealed the one secret of her heart so lately revealed to herself, and Clinton resumed his passionate declarations.

“If you will not go,” said she, all her terror returning at the vehemence of his suit, “if you will not go,” looking wildly at the door that separated her from the sick room, “I will leave you here. You dare not follow me. The destroying angel guards this threshold.”

In her excitement she knew not what she uttered. The words came unbidden from her lips. She laid her hand on the latch, but Clinton caught hold of it ere she had time to lift it.

“You shall not leave me, by heaven, you shall not, till you have answered one question. Is it for the cold, calculating Arthur Hazleton you reject such love as mine?”

Instead of uttering an indignant denial to this sudden and vehement interrogation, Helen trembled and turned pale. Her natural timidity and sensitiveness returned with overpowering influence; and added to these, a keen sense of shame at being accused of an unsolicited attachment, a charge she could not with truth repel, humbled and oppressed her.

“A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid.”

So thought Helen, while shrinking from the glance that gleamed upon her, like blue steel flashing in the sunbeams. Yes! Arthur Hazleton was cold compared to Clinton. He loved her even as he did Alice, with a calm, brotherly affection, and that was all. He had never praised her beauty or attractions—never offered the slightest incense to her vanity or pride. Sometimes he had uttered indirect expressions, which had made her bosom throb wildly with hope, but humility soon chastened the emotion which delicacy taught her to conceal. Cold indeed sounded the warmest phrase he had ever addressed her, “God bless you, dear, good, brave Helen,” to Clinton’s romantic and impassioned language, though, when it fell from his lips, it passed with such melting warmth into her heart. Swift as a swallow’s flight these thoughts darted through Helen’s mind, and gave an indecision and embarrassment to her manner, which emboldened Clinton with hopes of success. All at once her countenance changed. The strangeness of her situation, the lateness of the hour, the impropriety of receiving such a visitor in that little dark, narrow passage—the dread of Arthur’s coming in, and finding her alone with her dreaded though splendid companion—the fear that Miss Thusa might waken and require her assistance—the vision of her father’s displeasure and Mittie’s jealous wrath—all swept in a stormy gust before her, driving away every consideration but one—the desire for escape, and the determination to effect it. The apprehension of awaking Miss Thusa, by rushing into her room, died in the grasp of a greater terror.

“Let me go,” she exclaimed, wrenching her hand from his tightening hold. “Let me go. You madden me.”

In her haste to open the door the latch rattled, and the door swung to with a violence that called forth a groan from the awakening sleeper. Turning the wooden button that fastened it on the inside, she sunk down into the first seat in her reach, and a dark shadow, flecked with sparks of fire, floated before her eyes. Chill and dizzy, she thought she was going to faint, when her name, pronounced distinctly by Miss Thusa, recalled her bewildered senses. She rose, and it seemed as if the bed came to her, for she was not conscious of walking to it, but she found herself bending over the patient and looking steadfastly into her clouded eyes.

“Helen, my dear,” said she, “I feel a great deal better. I must have slept a long time. Have I not? Give me a little water. There, now sit down close by my bed and listen. If that knife cuts my breath again, I shall have to give up talking. Just raise my head a little, and hand me my spectacles off the big Bible. I can’t talk without them. But how dim the glasses are. Wipe them for me, child. There’s dust settled on them.”Helen took the glasses and wiped them with her soft linen handkerchief, but she sighed as she did so, well knowing that it was the eyes that were growing dim instead of the crystal that covered them.

“A little better—a little better,” said the spinster, looking wistfully towards the candle. “Now, Helen, my dear, just step into the other room and bring here my wheel. It is heavy, but not beyond your strength. I always bring it in here at night, but I can’t do it now. I was taken sick so sudden, I forgot it. It’s my stay-by and stand-by—you know.”

Helen looked so startled and wild, that Miss Thusa imagined her struck with superstitious terror at the thought of going alone into another room.

“I’m sorry to see you’ve not outgrown your weaknesses,” said she. “It’s my fault, I’m afraid, but I hope the Lord will forgive me for it.”

Helen was not afraid of the lonely room, so near and so lately occupied, but she was afraid of encountering Clinton, who might be lingering by the open door. But Miss Thusa’s request, sick and helpless as she was, had the authority of a command, and she rose to obey her. She barred the outer door without catching the gleam of Clinton’s dark, shining hair, and having brought the wheel, with panting breath, for it was indeed very heavy, sat down with a feeling of security and relief, since the enemy was now shut out by double barriers. One window was partly raised to admit the air to Miss Thusa’s oppressed lungs, but they were both fastened above.

“You had better not exert yourself, Miss Thusa,” said Helen, after giving her the medicine which the doctor had prescribed. “You are not strong enough to talk much now.”

“I shall never be stronger, my child. My day is almost spent, and the night cometh, wherein no man can work. I always thought I should have a sudden call, and when I was struck with that sharp pain, I knew my Master was knocking at the door. The Lord be praised, I don’t want to bar him out. I’m ready and willing to go, willing to close my long and lonely life. I have had few to love, and few to care for me, but, thank God, the one I love best of all does not forsake me in my last hour. Helen, darling, God bless you—God bless you, my blessed child.”

The voice of the aged spinster faltered, and tear after tear trickled like wintry rain down her furrowed cheeks. All the affections of a naturally warm and generous heart lingered round the young girl, who was still to her the little child whom she had cradled in her arms, and hushed into the stillness of awe by her ghostly legends. Helen, inexpressibly affected, leaned her head on Miss Thusa’s pillow, and wept and sobbed audibly. She did not know, till this moment, how strong and deep-rooted was her attachment for this singular and isolated being. There was an individuality, a grandeur in her character, to which Helen’s timid, upward-looking spirit paid spontaneous homage. The wild sweep of her imagination, always kept within the limits of the purest morality, her stern sense of justice, tempered by sympathy and compassion, and the tenderness and sensibility that so often softened her harsh and severe lineaments, commanded her respect and admiration. Even her person, which was generally deemed ungainly and unattractive, was invested with majesty and a certain grace in Helen’s partial eyes. She was old—but hers was the sublimity of age without its infirmity, the hoariness of winter without its chillness. It seemed impossible to associate with her the idea of dissolution. Yet there she lay, helpless as an infant, with no more strength to resist the Almighty’s will, than a feather to hurl back the force of the whirlwind.

“You see that wheel, Helen,” said she, recovering her usual calmness—“I told you that I should bequeath it, as a legacy, to you. Don’t despise the homely gift. You see those brass bands, with grooves in them—just screw them to the right as hard as you can—a little harder.”

Helen screwed and twisted till her slender wrists ached, when the brass suddenly parted, and a number of gold pieces rolled upon the floor.

“Pick them up, and put them back,” said Miss Thusa, “and screw it up again—all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too, made by the lawyers where I found the money. You remember when that advertisement was put in the papers, and I went on that journey, part of the way with you. Well, I must tell you the shortest way, though it’s a long story. It was written by a lady, on her death-bed, a widow lady, who had no children, and a large property of her own. You don’t remember my brother, but your father does. He was a hater of the world, and almost made me one. Well, it seemed he had a cause for his misanthropy which I never knew of, for when he was a young man he went away from home, and we didn’t hear from him for years. When he came back, he was sad and sickly, and wanted to get into some little quiet place, where nobody would molest him. Then it was we came to this little cabin, where he died, in this very room, and this very bed, too.”

Miss Thusa paused, and the room and the bed seemed all at once clothed with supernatural solemnity, by the sad consecration of death. Death had been there—death was waiting there.

“Oh! Miss Thusa, you are faint and weary. Do stop and rest, I pray you,” cried Helen, bathing her forehead with camphor, and holding a glass of water to her lips.

But the unnatural strength which opium gives, sustained her, and she continued her narrative.

“This lady, when young, had loved and been betrothed to my brother, and then forsook him for a wealthier man. It was that which ruined him, and I never knew it. He had one of those still natures, where the waters of sorrow lie deep as a well. They never overflow. She told me that she never had had one happy moment from the time she married, and that her conscience gnawed her for her broken faith. Her husband died, and left her a rich widow, without a child to leave her property to. After a while she fell sick of a long and lingering disease, for which there is no cure. Then she thought if she could leave her money to my brother, or he being dead, to some of his kin, she could die with more comfort. So, she put the advertisement in the paper, which you all saw. I didn’t want the money, and wanted to come away without it, but she sent for a lawyer, and had it all fastened upon me by deeds and writings, whether I was willing or not. She didn’t live but a few days after I got there. The lawyer was very kind, and assisted me in my plans, though he thought them very odd. There is no need of wasting my breath in telling how I had the money changed into gold, and the wheel fixed in the way you see it, after a fashion of my own. I would not have touched one cent of it, had it not been for you, and next to you, that poor boy, Louis. I didn’t want any one to know it, and be dinning in my ears about money from morning to night. I had no use for it myself, for habits don’t change when the winter of life is begun. There is no use for it in the dark grave to which I am hastening. There is no use for it near the great white throne of God, where I shall shortly stand. When I am dead and gone, Helen, take that wheel home, and give it a place wherever you are, for old Miss Thusa’s sake. I really think—I’m a strange, foolish old woman—but I really think I should like to have its likeness painted on my coffin lid. A kind of coat-of-arms, you know, child.”

Miss Thusa did not relate all this without pausing many times for breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It reminded her of the tales of the genii, more than of the actualities of every day life. She prayed that Miss Thusa might live and take care of it herself for long years to come.

Several times during the recital, she thought she heard a sound at the window, but when she turned her head to ascertain the cause, she saw nothing but the curtain slightly fluttering in the wind that crept in at the opening, with a soft, sighing sound.

It was the first time she had ever watched with the sick, and she found it a very solemn thing. Yet with all the solemnity and gloom brooding over her, she felt inexpressible gratitude that she was not haunted by the spectral illusions of her childhood. Reason was no longer the vassal, but the monarch of imagination, and though the latter often proved a restless and wayward subject, it acknowledged the former as its legitimate sovereign.

Miss Thusa, lying so rigid and immovable on her back, with her hands crossed on her breast, a white linen handkerchief folded over her head and fastened under the chin, looked so resembling death, that it was difficult to think of her as a living, breathing thing. Helen gazed upon her with indescribable awe, sometimes believing it was nothing but soulless clay before her, but even then she gazed without horror. Her exceeding terror of death was gone, without her being conscious of its departure. It was like the closing of a dark abyss—there was terra firma, where an awful chasm had been. There was more terror to her in the vitality burning in her own heart, than in that poor, enfeebled form. How strong were its pulsations! how loud they sounded in the midnight stillness!—louder than the death-watch that ticked by the hearth. To escape from the beatings of “this muffled drum” of life, she went to the window, and partly drawing aside the curtain, breathed on a pane of glass, so that the gauzy web the frost had woven might melt away and admit the vertical rays of the midnight moon. How beautiful, how resplendent was the scene that was spread out before her! She had not thought before of looking abroad, and it was the first time the solemn glories of the noon of night had unfolded to her view. In the morning a drizzling rain had fallen, which had frozen as it fell on the branches of the leafless trees, and now on every little twig hung pendant diamonds, glittering in the moonbeams. The ground was partially covered with snow, but where it lay bare, it was powdered with diamond dust. A silvery net-work was drawn over the windows, save one clear spot, which her melting breath had made. She looked up to the moon, shining so high, so lone on the pale azure of a wintry heaven, and felt an impulse to kneel down and worship it, as the loveliest, holiest image of the Creator’s goodness and love. How tranquil, how serene, how soft, yet glorious it shone forth from the still depths of ether! What a divine melancholy it diffused over the sleeping earth! Helen felt as she often did when looking up into the eyes of Arthur Hazleton. So tranquil, so serene, yet so glorious were their beams to her, and so silently and holily did they sink into the soul.

In the morning the young doctor found his patient in the same feeble, slumberous state. There was no apparent change either for better or worse, and he thought it probable she might linger days and even weeks, gradually sinking, till she slept the last great sleep.

“You look weary and languid, Helen,” said he, anxiously regarding the young watcher, “I hope nothing disturbed your lonely vigils. I endeavored to return, that I might relieve you, in some measure, of your fatiguing duty, but was detained the whole night.”

Helen thought of the terror she had suffered from Clinton’s intrusion, but she did not like to speak of it. Perhaps he had already left the neighborhood, and it seemed ungenerous and useless to betray him.

“I certainly had no ghostly visitors,” said she, “and what is more, I did not fear them. All unreal phantasies fled before that sad reality,” looking on the wan features of Miss Thusa.

“I see you have profited by the discipline of the last twelve hours,” cried Arthur, “and it was most severe, for one of your temperament and early habits. I have heard it said,” he added, thoughtfully, “that those who follow my profession, become callous and indifferent to human suffering—that their nerves are steeled, and their hearts indurated—but I do not find it the case with me; I never approach the bedside of the sick and the dying without deep and solemn emotion. I feel nearer the grave, nearer to Heaven and God.”

“No—I am sure it cannot be said of you,” said Helen, earnestly, “you are always kind and sympathizing—quick to relieve, and slow to inflict pain.”

“Ah, Helen, you forget how cruel I was in forcing you back, where the deadly viper had been coiled; in making you take that dark, solitary walk in search of the sleeping Alice; and even last night I might have spared you your lonely night watch, if I would. Had I told you that you were too inexperienced and inefficient to be a good nurse, you would have believed me and yielded your place, or at least shared it with another. Do you still think me kind?”

“Most kind, even when most exacting,” she replied. Whenever her feelings were excited, her deep feelings of joy as well as sorrow, Helen’s eyes always glistened. This peculiarity gave a soft, pensive expression to her countenance that was indescribably winning, and made her smile from the effect of contrast enchantingly sweet.

The glistening eye and the enchanting smile that followed these words, or rather accompanied them, were not altogether lost on Arthur.

Mrs. Gleason came to relieve Helen from the care of nursing, and insisted upon her immediate return home. Helen obeyed with reluctance, claiming the privilege of resuming her watch again at night. She wanted to be with Miss Thusa in her last moments. She had a sublime curiosity to witness the last strife of body and soul, the separation of the visible and the invisible; but when night came on, exhausted nature sought renovation in the deepest slumbers that had ever wrapped her. Arthur, perceiving some change in his patient, resolved to remain with her himself, having hired a woman to act as subordinate nurse during Miss Thusa’s sickness. She occupied the kitchen as bed-room—an apartment running directly back of the sick chamber.

Miss Thusa’s strength was slowly, gently wasting. Disease had struck her at first like a sharp poignard, but life flowed away from the wound without much after suffering. The greater part of the time she lay in a comatose state, from which it was difficult to rouse her.

Arthur sat by the fire, with a book in his hand, which at times seemed deeply to interest him, and at others, he dropped it in his lap, and gazing intently into the glowing coals, appeared absorbed in the mysteries of thought.

About midnight, when reverie had deepened into slumber, he was startled by a low knock at the door. He had not fastened it as elaborately as Helen had done, and quickly and noiselessly opening it, he demanded who was there. It was a young boy, bearing him a note from the family he had visited the preceding night. His patient was attacked with some very alarming symptoms, and begged his immediate attendance. Having wakened the woman and commissioned her to watch during his absence, Arthur departed, surprised at the unexpected summons, as he had seen the patient at twilight, who then appeared in a fair way of recovery. His surprise was still greater, when arriving at the house he found that no summons had been sent for him, no note written, but the whole household were wrapped in peaceful slumbers. The note, which he carried in his pocket, was pronounced a forgery, and must have been written with some dark and evil design. But what could it be? Who could wish to draw him away from that poor, lone cottage, that poor sick, dying woman? It was strange, inexplicable.

Mr. Mason, the gentleman in whose name the note had been written, and who fortunately happened to be the sheriff of the county, insisted upon accompanying him back to the cottage, and aiding him to discover its mysterious purpose. It might be a silly plot of some silly boy, but that did not seem at all probable, as Arthur was so universally respected and beloved—and such was the dignity and affability of his character, that no one would think of playing upon him a foolish and insulting trick.

The distance was not great, and they walked with rapid footsteps over the crisp and frozen ground. Around the cabin, the snow formed a thick carpet, which, lying in shade, had not been glazed, like the general surface of the landscape. Their steps did not resound on this white covering, and instead of crossing the stile in front of the cabin, they vaulted over the fence and approached the door by a side path. The moment Arthur laid his hand upon the latch he knew some one had entered the house during his absence, for he had closed the door, and now it was ajar. With one bound he cleared the passage, and Mr. Mason, who was a tall and strong man, was not left much in the rear. The inner door was not latched, and opened at the touch. The current of air which rushed in with their sudden entrance rolled into the chimney, and the fire flashed up and roared, illuminating every object within. Near the centre of the room stood a man, wrapped in a dark cloak that completely concealed his figure, a dark mask covering his face, and a fur cap pulled deep over his forehead. He stood by the side of Miss Thusa’s wheel, which presented the appearance of a ruin, with its brazen bands wrenched asunder, and its fragments strewed upon the floor. He was evidently arrested in the act of destruction, for one hand grasped the distaff, the other clinched something which he sought to conceal in the folds of his cloak.

Miss Thusa, partly raised on her elbow, which shook and trembled from the weight it supported, was gazing with impotent despair on her dismembered wheel. A dim fire quivered in her sunken eyes, and her sharpened and prominent features were made still more ghastly by the opaque frame-work of white linen that surrounded them. She was uttering faint and broken ejaculations.

“Monster—robber!—my treasure! Take the gold—take it, but spare my wheel! Poor Helen! I gave it to her! Poor child! It’s she you are robbing, not me! Oh, my God! my heart-strings are breaking! My wheel, that I loved like a human being! Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!”

These piteous exclamations met the ear of Arthur as he entered the room, and roused all the latent wrath of his nature. He forgot every thing but the dark, masked figure which, gathering up its cloak, sprang towards the door, with the intention of escaping, but an iron grasp held it back. Seldom, indeed, were the strong but subdued passions of Arthur Hazleton suffered to master him, but now they had the ascendency. He never thought of calling on Mr. Mason to assist him quietly in securing the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender at once, looked on with that strange pleasure which men feel in witnessing scenes of conflict. He was astonished at the transformation of the young doctor. He had always seen him so calm and gentle in the chamber of sickness, so peaceful in his intercourse with his fellow-men, that he did not know the lamb could be thus changed into the lion.Arthur had now effected his object, in unmasking and uncloaking his antagonist, and he found himself face to face with—Bryant Clinton. The young men stood gazing at each other for a few moments in perfect silence. They were both of an ashy paleness, and their eyes glittered under the shadow of their darkened brows. But Clinton could not long sustain that steadfast, victor glance. His own wavered and fell, and the blood swept over his face in a reddening wave.

“Let me go,” said he, in a low, husky voice, “I am in your power; but be magnanimous and release me. I throw myself on your generosity, not your justice.”

Arthur’s sternly upbraiding eye softened into an expression of the deepest sorrow, not unmingled with contempt, on beholding the degradation of this splendidly endowed young man. He reminded him of a fallen angel, with his glorious plumage all soiled and polluted with the mire and corruption of earth. He never had had faith in his integrity; be believed him to be the tempter of Louis, the deceiver of Mittie, reckless and unprincipled where pleasure was concerned, but he did not believe him capable of such a daring transgression. Had he been alone, he would have released him, for his magnanimity and generosity would have triumphed over his sense of justice, but legal authority was present, and to that he was forced to submit.

“I arrest you, sir, in virtue of my authority as sheriff of the county,” exclaimed Mr. Mason; “empty your pockets of the gold you have purloined from this woman, and then follow me. Quick, or I’ll give you rough aid.”

The pomp and aristocracy of Clinton’s appearance and manners had made him unpopular in the neighborhood, and it is not strange that a man whom he had never condescended to notice should triumph in his disgrace. He looked on with vindictive pleasure while Clinton, after a useless resistance, produced the gold he had secreted, but Arthur turned away his head in shame. He could not bear to witness the depth of his degradation. His cheek burned with painful blushes, as the gold clinked on the table, ringing forth the tale of Clinton’s guilt.

“Now, sir, come along,” cried the stern voice of the sheriff. “Doctor, I leave the care of this to you.”While he was speaking, he drew a pair of hand-cuffs from his pocket, which he had slipped in before leaving home, thinking they might come in use.

“You shall not degrade me thus!” exclaimed Clinton, haughtily, writhing in his grasp; “you shall never put those vile things on me!”

“Softly, softly, young gentleman,” cried the sheriff, “I shall hurt your fair wrists if you don’t stand still. There, that will do. Come along. No halting.”

Arthur gave one glance towards the retreating form of Clinton, as he passed through the door, with his haughty head now drooping on his breast, wearing the iron badge of crime, and groaned in spirit, that so fair a temple should not be occupied by a nobler indwelling guest. So rapidly had the scene passed, so still and lone seemed the apartment, for Miss Thusa had sunk back on her pillow mute and exhausted, that he was tempted to believe that it was nothing but a dream. But the wheel lay in fragments at his feet, the gold lay in shining heaps upon the table, and a dark mask grinned from the floor. That gold, too!—how dream-like its existence! Was Miss Thusa a female Midas or Aladdin? Was the dull brass lamp burning on the table, the gift of the genii? Was the old gray cabin a witch’s magic home?

Rousing himself with a strong effort, he examined the condition of his patient, and was grieved to find how greatly this shock had accelerated the work of disease. Her pulse was faint and flickering, her skin cold and clammy, but after swallowing a cordial, and inhaling the strong odor of hartshorn, a reaction took place, and she revived astonishingly; but when she spoke, her mind evidently wandered, sometimes into the shadows of the past, sometimes into the light of the future.

“What shall I do with this?” asked Arthur, pointing to the gold, anxious to bring her thoughts to some central point; “and these, too?” stooping down and picking up a fragment of the wheel.

“Screw it up again—screw it up,” she replied, quickly, “and put the gold back in it. ’Tis Helen’s—all little Helen’s. Don’t let them rob her after I’m dead.”

Rejoicing to hear her speak so rationally, though wondering if what she said of Helen was not the imagining of a disordered brain, he began to examine the pieces of the wheel, and found that with the exertion of a little skill he could put them together again, and that it was only some slender parts of the machine which were broken. He placed the money in its hollow receptacles, united the brazen rings, and smoothed the tangled flax that twined the distaff. Ever and anon Miss Thusa turned her fading glance towards him, and murmured,

“It is good. It is good!”

For more than an hour she lay perfectly still, when suddenly moving, she exclaimed,

“Put away the curtain—it’s too dark.”

Arthur drew aside the curtain from the window nearest the bed, and the pale, cold moonlight came in, in white, shining bars, and striped the dark counterpane. One fell across Miss Thusa’s face, and illuminated it with a strange and ghastly lustre.

“Has the moon gone down?” she asked. “I thought it stayed till morning in the sky. But my glasses are getting wondrous dim. I must have a new pair, doctor. How slow the wheel turns round; the band keeps slipping off, and the crank goes creaking, creaking, for want of oil. Little Helen, take your feet off the treadle, and don’t sit so close, darling. I can’t breathe.”

She panted a few moments, catching her breath with difficulty, then tossing her arms above the bed-cover, said, in a fainter voice,

“The great wheel of eternity keeps rolling on, and we are all bound upon it. How grandly it moves, and all the time the flax on the distaff is smoking. God says in the Bible He will not quench it, but blow it to a flame. You’ve read the Bible, havn’t you, doctor? It is a powerful book. It tells about Moses and the Lamb. I’ll tell you a story, Helen, about a Lamb that was slain. I’ve told you a great many, but never one like this. Come nearer, for I can’t speak very loud. Take care, the thread is sliding off the spool. Cut it, doctor, cut it; it’s winding round my heart so tight! Oh, my God! it snaps in two!”

These were the last words the aged spinster ever uttered. The main-spring of life was broken. When the cold, gray light of morning had extinguished the pallid splendor of the moon, and one by one the objects in the little room came forth from the dimness of shade, which a single lamp had not power to disperse, a great change was visible. The dark covering of the bed was removed, the bed itself was gone—but through a snowy white sheet that was spread over the frame, the outline of a tall form was visible. All was silent as the grave. A woman sat by the hearth, with a grave and solemn countenance—so grave and so solemn she seemed a fixture in that still apartment. The wheel stood still by the bed-frame, the spectacles lay still on the Bible, and a dark, gray dress hung in still, dreary folds against the wall.

After a while the woman rose, and walking on tiptoe, holding her breath as she walked, pulled the sheet a little further one side. Foolish woman! had she stepped with the thunderer’s tread, she could not have disturbed the cold sleeper, covered with that snowy sheet.

Two or three hours after, the door opened and the young doctor entered with a young girl clinging to his arm. She was weeping, and as soon as she caught a glimpse of the white sheet she burst into loud sobs.

“We will relieve you of your watch a short time,” said Arthur; and the woman left the room. He led Helen to the bedside, and turning back the sheet, exposed the venerable features composed into everlasting repose. Helen did not recoil or tremble as she gazed. She even hushed her sobs, as if fearing to ruffle the inexpressible placidity of that dreamless rest. Every trace of harshness was removed from the countenance, and a serene melancholy reigned in its stead. A smile far more gentle than she ever wore in life, lingered on the wan and frozen lips.

“How benign she looks,” ejaculated Helen, “how happy! I could gaze forever on that peaceful, silent face—and yet I once thought death so terrible.”

“Life is far more fearful, Helen. Life, with all its feverish unrest, its sinful strife, its storms of passion and its waves of sorrow. Oh, had you beheld the scene which I last night witnessed in this very room—a scene in which life revelled in wildest power, you would tremble at the thought of possessing a vitality capable of such unholy excitement—you would envy the quietude of that unbreathing bosom.”

“And yet,” said Helen, “I have often heard you speak of life as an inestimable, a glorious gift, as so rich a blessing that the single heart had not room to contain the gratitude due.”

“And so it is, Helen, if rightly used. I am wrong to give it so dark a coloring—ungrateful, because my own experience is bright beyond the common lot—unwise, for I should not sadden your views by anticipation. Yes, if life is fearful from its responsibilities, it is glorious in its hopes and rich in its joys. Its mysteries only increase its grandeur, and prove its divine origin.”

Thus Arthur continued to talk to Helen, sustaining and elevating her thoughts, till she forgot that she came in sorrow and tears.

There was another, who came, when he thought none was near, to pay the last tribute of sorrow over the remains of Miss Thusa, and that was Louis. He thought of his last interview with her, and her last words reverberated in his ear in the silence of that lonely room—“In the name of your mother in Heaven, go and sin no more.”

Louis sunk upon his knees by that cold and voiceless form, and vowed, in the strength of the Lord, to obey her parting injunction. He could never now repay the debt he owed, but he could do more—he could be just to himself and the memory of her who had opened her lips wisely to reprove, and her hand kindly to relieve.

Peace be to thee, ancient sibyl, lonely dweller of the old gray cottage. No more shall thy busy fingers twist with curious skill the flaxen fibres that wreath thy distaff—no more shall the hum of thy wheel mingle in chorus with the buzzing of the fly and the chirping of the cricket. But as thou didst say in thy dying hour, “the great wheel of eternity keeps rolling on,” and thou art borne along with it, no longer a solitary, weary pilgrim, without an arm to sustain or kindred heart to cheer, but we humbly trust, one of that innumerable, glorious company, who, clothed in white robes and bearing branching palms, sing the great praise-song that never shall end, “Allelulia—the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”