Part 35 (2/2)

”Darling Miggie, I dreamed you were gone,” she said, ”and, I cried so hard that it woke Arthur up. He sleeps here every night, on that wide lounge,” and she pointed toward a corner, ”I've grown so silly that I won't let any body else take care of me but Arthur boy--he does it so nice and lifts me so carefully. Hasn't he grown pale and thin?”

Edith hardly knew, for she had not ventured to look fully at him, but she a.s.sumed that he had, and Nina continued: ”He's a darling boy, and Nina loves him now.”

”How is your head this morning,” Edith asked, and Nina replied, ”It's better. It keeps growing better, some days it's clear as a bell, but I don't like it so well, for I know then that you ain't Miggie,--not the real Miggie who was sent home in mother's coffin.

We have a new burying ground, one father selected long ago, the sweetest spot you ever saw, and they are moving the bodies there now. They are going to take up my last mother, and the little bit of Miggie to-day, and Marie is so flurried.”

Arthur's step was now heard in the hall, and this it was which so excited Edith that she failed to catch the word Marie, or to understand that it was Mrs. Lamotte who was worried about the removal of the bodies. In a moment Arthur appeared, bringing a delicate bouquet for Nina, and a world of suns.h.i.+ne to Edith. He was changed, Edith saw as she looked at him now, and yet she liked his face better than before. He seemed to her like one over whom the fire had pa.s.sed, purifying as it burned, and leaving a better metal than it had found. He was wholly self-possessed this morning, greeting her as if the scene in the Deering woods had never been enacted, and she could hardly believe that they were the same, the Arthur of one year ago, and the Arthur of to-day; the quiet, elegant young man, who, with more than womanly tenderness, pushed Nina's curls back under her lace cap, kissed her forehead, and then asked Edith if she did not look like a little nun with her hair so plain.

Nina liked to be caressed, and she smiled upon him a smile so full of trusting faith and love, that Edith's eyes filled with tears, and her rebellious heart went out toward Arthur as it had never done before, inasmuch as she felt that he was now far more worthy of her.

Very rapidly the morning pa.s.sed away, and it was after three o'clock P.M., when, as Arthur sat with Edith upon the cool piazza, one of the negroes came running up, the perspiration starting from every pore, and himself almost frantic with excitement.

”What is it, Caesar?” Arthur asked. ”What has happened to you?”

”Nothing to me, Mars'r,” returned the negro; ”but sumfin mighty curis happen over dar,” and he pointed in the direction where his comrades were busy removing the family dead to a spot selected by Mr. Bernard years before as one more suitable than the present location. ”You see, we was histin' de box of the young Miss and de chile, when Bill let go his holt, and I kinder let my hands slip off, when, Lor' bless you, the box busted open, an' we seen the coffin spang in the face. Says Bill, says he--he's allus a reasonin', you know--an', says he, 'that's a mighty narrer coffin for two;' and wid that, Mr. Berry, the overseer, Miss,” turning to Edith, ”He walked up, and findin' de screws rattlin' and loose, just turned back de top piece, an', as true as Caesar's standin'

here, there wasn't no chile thar; nothin' 'tall but the Miss, an'

she didn't look no how; never should have guessed them heap of bones had ever been Miss Petry.”

Edith started from her chair and was about to speak when a hand was laid upon her wrist, and turning, she saw Mrs. Lamotte standing behind her, and apparently more excited than herself.

”Come with me,” she said, leading the unresisting Edith away, and leaving Arthur to follow Caesar.

Of all the household at Sunnybank no one had been so much interested in the removal of the bodies as Mrs. Lamotte, and yet her interest was all centered upon the grave of Miggie Bernard's mother. When that was disturbed, she was watching from her window, and when the accident occurred which revealed the fraud of years, she hurried down and, with a cat-like tread, glided behind Edith's chair where she stood while Caesar told his story.

It would be impossible to describe Edith's feeling as she followed the strange woman up to her own room, sitting down just where Mrs.

Lamotte bade her sit, and watching nervously the restless rolling of the eyes, which had no terror for her now, particularly after their owner said to her in French,

”Do you know me, Edith Hastings, Eloise Temple, Marguerite Bernard? Have we never met before?”

Like the rus.h.i.+ng of some mighty, pent up flood the past swept over her then, almost bearing her senses down with the headlong tide; link after link was joined, until the chain of evidence was complete, and with a scream of joy Edith went forward to the arms unfolded to receive her.

”Marie, Marie!” she cried, ”How is it? When was it? Where was it?

Am I anybody or not, tell me?”

Then question followed question go rapidly that Marie, with all her voluble French and broken English, was hardly able to keep up.

But the whole was told at last; everything was clear to Edith as the daylight, and tottering to the bed, she asked to be alone, while she wept and prayed over this great joy, which had come so suddenly upon her.

”Nina, Nina. I thank thee, oh, my Father, for sweet, precious Nina.”

That was all she could say, as with her face in the pillows, she lay until the sun went down, and night fell a second time on Sunnybank.

”No one shall tell her but myself,” she thought as she descended to Nina's room, where Arthur was telling of the discovery they had made--a discovery for which he could not account, and about which the negroes, congregated together in knots, were talking, each offering his or her own theory with regard to the matter, and never once thinking to question Mrs. Lamotte, who, they knew, had been with Mrs. Bernard when she died.

”Oh, Miggie!” Nina cried. ”HAVE you heard? do you know? Little Miggie isn't there where we thought she was. She's gone. n.o.body's there but my other mother.”

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