Augusta J. Evans

“ Murray put his arm around Edna, and drew her face to his bosom.
"Darling, do you remember that once, in the dark days of my reckless sinfulness, I asked you one night, in the library at Le Bocage, if you had no faith in me? And you repeated so vehemently, 'None, Mr. Murray!'"
"Oh, sir! do not think of it. Why recur to what is so painful and so long past? Forgive those words and forget them! Never was more implicit faith, more devoted affection, given to any human being than I give now to you, Mr. Murray; you, who are my first and my last and my only love." ”

“ With your dear little hand in mine to lead me, I will make amends for the ruin and suffering I have wrought, and my Edna—my own wife, shall save me!" Before the orphan's mental vision rose the picture of Gertrude, the trembling coral mouth, the childish wistful eyes, the lovely head nestled down so often and so lovingly on her shoulder; and she saw, too, the bent figure and white locks of her beloved pastor, as he sat in his old age, in his childless, desolate home, facing the graves of his murdered children.
"Oh, Mr. Murray! You can not atone! You can not call your victims from their tombs. ”

“ Oh, mamma, mamma! I don't want to die. The world is so beautiful, and life is so sweet up here in the sunshine and the starlight, and it is so cold and dark down there in the grave. Oh! where is Edna? Tell her to come quick and sing something to me."
The cripple shuddered and shut his eyes. He had wasted away, until he looked a mere shadow of humanity, and his governess stooped and took him from his mother's arms as if he were a baby.
"Edna, talk to me! Oh! don't let me get afraid to die. ”

“ Oh! will you not pray for yourself? Mr. Murray, I believe I shall not be happy even in heaven if I do not see you there. On earth we are parted—your crimes divide us; but there! there! Oh! for my sake, make an effort to redeem yourself, and meet me there!"
She felt his strong frame tremble, and a heavy shuddering sigh broke from his lips and swept across her cheek. But when he spoke his words contained no hint of the promise she longed to receive:
"Edna, my shadow has fallen across your heart, and I am not afraid that you will forget me. ”

“ Bring some seats, Willis. Sit down here by me, Edna, and take off your bonnet, child, and let me see you. Umph! umph! Who'd have thought it? What a powerful handsome woman you have made, to be sure! to be sure! Well! well! The very saints up in glory can't begin to tell what children will turn out! Lean your face this way. Why, you a'n't no more like that little bare-footed, tangle-haired, rosy-faced Edna that used to run around these woods in striped homespun, hunting the cows, than I, Dorothy Elmira Wood, am like the Queen of Sheba when she went up visiting to Jerusalem to call on Solomon. ”

“ You do not need me—you who are so great and gifted; whose writings everybody reads and admires; whose name is already famous. Oh! you can not need any one, and, least of all, a poor little helpless cripple! who can only worship you, and love the sound of your voice better than all the music that ever was played! If I thought that you, Miss Earl—whose book all the world is talking about—if I thought you really cared for me—Oh, Edna! Edna! I believe my heart would be too big for my poor little body!"
"Felix, we need each other. ”

“ He laughed again, and put his lips close to her ear, saying softly, tenderly—ah! how tenderly:
"Upon my honor as a gentleman, I solemnly swear that I love but one woman; that I love her as no other woman ever was loved; with a love that passes all language; a love that is the only light and hope of a wrecked, cursed, unutterably miserable life; and that idol which I have set up in the lonely gray ruins of my heart is Edna Earl!"
"I do not believe you! You have no honor! With the touch of Gertrude's lips and arms still on yours, you come to me and dare to perjure yourself! Oh, Mr. Murray! ”

“ Mrs. Murray, spare me! This is a subject which I cannot discuss with you."
"Why not, my child? Can you not trust the mother of the man you love?"
Edna unwound the arms that clasped her, and rising, walked away to the mantelpiece. Leaning heavily against it, she stood for some time with her face averted, and beneath the veil of long, floating hair Mrs. Murray saw the slight figure sway to and fro, like a reed shaken by the breeze.
"Edna, I must talk to you about a matter which alone brought me to New York. ”

“ Do not deceive yourself, Gordon. It is true many women are flattered by a man's perseverance, their vanity is gratified. They first reproach themselves for the suffering they inflict, then gratitude for constancy comes to plead for the inconsolable suitor, and at last they persuade themselves that such devotion can not fail to make them happy. Such a woman Edna is not, and if I have correctly understood her character, never can be. I sympathize with you, Gordon, and it is because I love you so sincerely that I warn you against a hope destined to cheat you. ”

“ I have left home to-day, because I felt assured that, much as you might desire to see 'Le Bocage,' you would never come here while there was a possibility of meeting me. You, who know something of my wayward, sinful, impatient temper, can perhaps imagine what I suffer, when I am told that your health is wretched, that you are in the next room, and yet, that I must not, shall not see you—my own Edna! Do you wonder that I almost grow desperate at the thought that only a wall—a door—separates me from you, whom I love better than my life? Oh, my darling! ”

“ Oh! if I had gone away a week ago! before I knew there was any redeeming charity in his sinful nature! If I could only despise him utterly, it would be so much easier to forget him. Ah! God pity me! God help me! What right have I to think of Gertrude's lover—Gertrude's husband! I ought to be glad that he is nobler than I thought, but I am not! Oh! I am not! I wish I had never known the good that he has done. Oh, Edna Earl! has it come to this? How I despise—how I hate myself! ”

“ Dear Edna, let me keep it always. Do I mistake your feelings when I hope that you return my affection?"
"You entirely mistake them, Mr. Leigh, in supposing that you can ever be more to me than a very dear and valued friend. It grieves me very much to be forced to give you pain or cause you disappointment; but I should wrong you even more than myself, were I to leave you in doubt concerning my feeling toward you. I like your society, and you have my entire confidence and highest esteem; but it is impossible that I can ever be your wife." ”

“ Edna laid her hand on the pale, curling lips of the cripple, and luckily at this instant Mrs. Andrews was summoned from the room.
Scarcely waiting till the door closed after her, the boy exclaimed passionately:
"Felix! don't call me Felix! That means happy, lucky! and she had no right to give me such a name. I am Infelix! nobody loves me! nobody cares for me, except to pity me, and I would rather be strangled than pitied! I wish I was dead and at rest in Greenwood! I wish somebody would knock my brains out with my crutch! and save me from hobbling through life. ”

“ I take an interest in you, Edna Earl, because I loved your mother, who was the only sweet-tempered beauty that ever I knew. I think I never set my eyes on a prettier face, with big brown eyes as meek as a partridge's; and then her hands and feet were as small as a queen's. Now as long as you are satisfied to stay here I shall be glad to have you, and I will do as well for you as for my own Tabitha; but, if you are bent on factory work and schooling, I have got no more to say; for I have no right to say where you shall go or where you shall stay. ”

“ The locket attached to a ribbon, which was always worn over my heart, and the miniatures which it contains are those of Agnes Hunt and Murray Hammond. Read all the record, and then judge me, as you hope to be judged. I sit alone, amid the mouldering, blackened ruins of my youth; will you not listen to the prayer of my heart, and the half-smothered pleadings of your own, and come to me in my desolation, and help me to build up a new and noble life? Oh, my darling, you can make me what you will. While you read and ponder, I am praying. ”

“ Five fair-browed, innocent young faces circling about the idolized wife, and baby Annie nestling in her cradle beside the hearth, playing with her waxen fingers and crowing softly. Death had stolen his household jewels; but recollection robbed the grave, and music's magic touch unsealed "memory's golden urn."
"Oh! death in life, the days that are no more!"
Edna thought he had fallen asleep, he was so still, his face was so placid; and she came softly back to her chair and looked at the ruby temples and towers, the glittering domes and ash-gray ruined arcades built by the oak coals. ”

“ You have indeed cause for gratitude and great joy, as you realize all the good you are destined to accomplish, and I know the rapture of saving souls, for, through God's grace, I believe I have snatched some from the brink of ruin. But, Edna, can the triumph of your genius, the applause of the world, the approval of conscience, even the assurance that you are laboring successfully for the cause of Christ—can all these things satisfy your womanly heart—your loving, tender heart? My child, there is a dreary look sometimes in your eyes, that reveals loneliness, almost weariness of life. ”

“ There is a singular magnetism about you, Edna Earl, which makes me wish to see your face always at my hearthstone; and for the first time in my life I want to say to the world, 'This woman wears my name, and belongs to me for ever!' You are inordinately ambitious; I can lift you to a position that will fully satisfy you, and place you above the necessity of daily labor—a position of happiness and ease, where your genius can properly develop itself. Can you consent to be Douglass Manning's wife? ”

“ You have a strange power over him; you can make him almost what you will. If you will not listen to your own suffering heart, or to his love, hear me! Hear a mother pleading for her son's eternal safety!"
The haughty woman fell on her knees before the orphan and wept, and
Edna instantly knelt beside her and clung to her.
"I pray for him continually. My latest breath shall be a prayer for his salvation. His eternal welfare is almost as precious to me as my own; for if I get to heaven at last, do you suppose I could be happy even there without him? But, Mrs. Murray, I can not be his wife. ”

“ I believe that every man who kills another in a duel deserves the curse of Cain, and should be shunned as a murderer. My conscience assures me that a man who can deliberately seek to gain a woman's heart merely to gratify his vanity, or to wreak his hate by holding her up to scorn, or trifling with the love which he has won, is unprincipled, and should be ostracized by every true woman. Were you the mother of Murray and Annie Hammond, do you think you could so easily forgive this murderer? ”

“ The souls of our dead need not the aid of Sandalphon to interpret the whispers that rise tremulously from the world of sin and wrestling, that float up among the stars, through the gates of pearl, down the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. So we all trust, and prate of our faith, and deceive ourselves with the fond hope that we are resigned to the Heavenly Will; and we go on with a show of Christian reliance, while the morning sun smiles in gladness and plenty, and the hymn of happy days and the dear voices of our loved ones make music in our ears ”

“ The strong man trembled like a wave-lashed reed, as he sank on one knee at the minister's feet, and buried his face in his arms; and spreading his palms over the drooped head, Mr. Hammond gently and solemnly blessed him.
For some time both were silent, and then Mr. Murray stretched out one arm over the slab, and said brokenly:
"Kneeling here at Murray's tomb, a strange, incomprehensible feeling creeps into my heart. The fierce, burning hate I have borne him seems to have passed away; and something, ah! something, mournfully like the old yearning toward him, comes back, as I look at his name. ”

“ Murray thought it best for me to come; but it was a mistaken kindness. I thought so before I came—now I have irrefragable proof that I was right in my forebodings."
"Can you not tell me all that was said?"
"I shrink, sir, from repeating it, even to you."
"Did Mr. Leigh hear it?"
"I hope not."
"My dear child, I am very much pained to learn that you have been so cruelly wounded; but do not let your mind dwell upon it; those weak, heartless, giddy people are to be pitied, are beneath your notice. ”

“ I know that jealousy will make a woman betray her affection sooner than any other cause, and I deliberately set myself to work to make you believe that I loved that pretty cheat over yonder at the parsonage—that frolicsome wax-doll, who would rather play with a kitten than talk to Cicero; who intercepts me almost daily, to favor me with manifestations of devotion, and shows me continually that I have only to put out my hand and take her to rule over my house, and trample my heart under her pretty feet! ”