Cord and Creese

by James De Mille

CHAPTER XV. — JOURNAL OF PAOLO LANGHETTI.

Liverpool, June 2, 1840.—I promised you, my Teresina, to keep a diary of all my wanderings, and now I begin, not knowing whether it will be worth reading or not, but knowing this: that my corellina will read it all with equal interest, whether it be trivial or important.

I have taken passage in the ship Tecumseh from Liverpool to Quebec. I have embarked in her for no better reason than this, that she is the first that will sail, and I am impatient. The first New York ship does not leave for a fortnight. A fortnight in Liverpool! Horror!

I have been on board to secure my room. I am told that there is a large number of emigrants. It is a pity, but it can not be helped. All ships have emigrants now. Ireland is being evacuated. There will soon be no peasants to till the soil. What enormous misery must be in that most wretched of countries! Is Italy worse? Yes, far worse; for Italy has a past to contrast with the present, whereas Ireland has no past.

At Sea, June 4.—We are many miles out in the Irish Channel. There are six hundred emigrants on board—men, women, and children. I am told that most of these are from Ireland, unhappy Ireland! Some are from England, and are going to seek their fortune in America. As I look on them I think, My God! what misery there is in this world! And yet what can I do to alleviate it? I am helpless. Let the world suffer. All will be right hereafter.

June 10.—Six hundred passengers! They are all crowded together in a manner that is frightful to me. Comfort is out of the question; the direst distress is every where present; the poor wretches only try to escape suffering. During storms they are shut in; there is little ventilation; and the horror that reigns in that hold will not let me either eat or sleep. I have remonstrated with the captain, but without effect. He told me that he could do nothing. The owners of the ship put them on board, and he was employed to take them to their proper destination. My God! what will become of them?

June 15.—There have been a few days of fine weather. The wretched emigrants have all been on deck. Among them I noticed three who, from their appearance, belonged to a different class. There was a lady with a young man and a young girl, who were evidently her children. The lady has once been beautiful, and still bears the traces of that beauty, though her face indicates the extreme of sadness. The son is a man of magnificent appearance, though as yet not full-grown. The daughter is more lovely than any being whom I have ever seen. She is different from my Bicetta. Bice is Grecian, with a face like that of a marble statue, and a soul of purely classic mould. Bice is serene. She reminds me of Artemis. Bice is an artist to her inmost heart. Bice I love as I love you, my Teresina, and I never expect to meet with one who can so interpret my ideas with so divine a voice. But this girl is more spiritual. Bice is classic, this one is medieval. Bice is a goddess, this one a saint. Bice is Artemis, or one of the Muses; this one is Holy Agnes or Saint Cecilia. There is in that sweet and holy face the same depth of devotion which our painters portray on the face of the Madonna. This little family group stand amidst all the other passengers, separated by the wide gulf of superior rank, for they are manifestly from among the upper classes, but still more so by the solemn isolation of grief. It is touching to see the love of the mother for her children, and the love of the children for their mother. How can I satisfy the longings which I feel to express to them my sympathy?

June 21.—I have at length gained my desire. I have become acquainted with that little group. I went up to them this morning in obedience to a resistless impulse, and with the most tender sympathy that I could express; and, with many apologies, offered the young man a bottle of wine for his mother. He took it gratefully and frankly. He met me half-way in my advances. The poor lady looked at me with speechless gratitude, as though kindness and sympathy were unknown to her. “God will reward you, Sir,” she said, in a tremulous voice, “for your sympathy with the miserable.”

“Dear Madame,” said I, “I wish no other reward than the consciousness that I may have alleviated your distress.”

My heart bled for these poor creatures. Cast down from a life which must have once been one of luxury, they were now in the foulest of places, the hold of an emigrant ship. I went back to the captain to see if I could not do something in their behalf. I wished to give up my room to them. He said I could do so if I wished, but that there was no room left in the cabin. Had there been I would have hired one and insisted on their going there.

I went to see the lady, and made this proposal as delicately as I could. There were two berths in my room. I urged her and her daughter to take them. At first they both refused most positively, with tears of gratitude. But I would not be so put off. To the mother I portrayed the situation of the daughter in that den of horror; to the daughter I pointed out the condition of the mother; to the son I showed the position of his mother and sister, and thus I worked upon the holiest feelings of their hearts. For myself I assured them that I could get a place among the sailors in the forecastle, and that I preferred doing so. By such means as these I moved them to consent. They did so with an expression of thankfulness that brought tears to my eyes.

“Dear Madame,” said I, “you will break my heart if you talk so. Take the room and say nothing. I have been a wanderer for years, and can live any where.”

It was not till then that I found out their names. I told them mine. They looked at one another in astonishment. “Langhetti?” said the mother.

“Yes.”

“Did you ever live in Holby?”

“Yes. My father was organist in Trinity Church, and I and my sister lived there some years. She lives there still.”

“My God!” was her ejaculation.

“Why?” I asked, with eager curiosity. “What do you know about Holby, and about Langhetti?”

She looked at me with solemn earnestness. “I,” said she, “am the wife, and these are the children of one who was your father’s friend. He who was my husband, and the father of these children, was Ralph Brandon, of Brandon Hall.”

I stood for a moment stupefied. Then I burst into tears. Then I embraced them all, and said I know not what of pity and sympathy and affection. My God! to think of such a fate as this awaiting the family of Ralph Brandon. Did you know this, oh, Teresina? If so, why did you keep it secret? But no—you could not have known it. If you had this would not have happened.

They took my room in the cabin—the dear ones—Mrs. Brandon and the sweet Edith. The son Frank and I stay together among the emigrants. Here I am now, and I write this as the sun is getting low, and the uproar of all these hundreds is sounding in my ears.

June 30.—There is a panic in the ship. The dread pestilence known as “ship-fever” has appeared. This disease is the terror of emigrant ships. Surely there was never any vessel so well adapted to be the prey of the pestilence as this of ours! I have lived for ten days among the steerage passengers, and have witnessed their misery. Is God just? Can he look down unmoved upon scenes like these? Now that the disease has come, where will it stop?

July 3.—The disease is spreading. Fifteen are prostrate. Three have died.

July 10.—Thirty deaths have occurred, and fifty are sick. I am assisting to nurse them.

July 15.—Thirty-four deaths since my last. One hundred and thirty are sick. I will labor here if I have to die for it.

July 18.—If this is my last entry let this diary be sent to Mrs. Thornton, care of William Thornton, Holby, Pembroke, England—(the above entry was written in English, the remainder was all in Italian, as before). More than two hundred are sick. Frank Brandon is down. I am afraid to let his mother know it. I am working night and day. In three days there have been forty-seven deaths. The crew are demoralized and panic-stricken.

July 23.—Shall I survive these horrors? More than fifty new deaths have occurred. The disease has spread among the sailors. Two are dead, and seven are sick. Horror prevails. Frank Brandon is recovering slowly. Mrs. Brandon does not know that he has been sick. We send word that we are afraid to come for fear of communicating the disease to her and to Edith.

July 27.—More than half of the sailors are sick. Eleven dead. Sixty-seven passengers dead since last report. Frank Brandon almost well, and helping me in my work.

July 30.—Nearly all the sailors more or less sick—five new deaths among them. Ship almost unmanageable. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Talk of putting into some port. Seventy passengers dead.

August 2.—Worse yet. Disease has spread into the cabin. Three cabin passengers dead. God have mercy upon poor Mrs. Brandon and sweet Edith! All the steerage passengers, with a few exceptions, prostrate. Frank Brandon is weak but helps me. I work night and day. The ship is like a floating pest-house. Forty new deaths since last report.

August 7.—Drifting along, I know not how, up the St. Lawrence. The weather calm, and two or three sailors able to manage the ship. Captain and mate both dead. Ten cabin passengers dead. Three more sailors dead. Only thirty-two steerage passengers dead since last report, but nearly all are sick. Hardly any one to attend to them.

August 10.—Mrs. Brandon and Edith both sick. Frank prostrate again. God in heaven, have mercy!

August 15.—Mrs. Brandon and Edith very low. Frank better.

August 16.—Quarantine Station, Gosse Island. I feel the fever in my veins. If I die, farewell, sweetest sister.

December 28, Halifax, Nova Scotia.—More than four months have elapsed since my last entry, and during the interval marvelous things have occurred. These I will now try to recall as I best can.

My last entry was made on the day of the arrival of the Tecumseh at the Quarantine Station, Gosse Island, Quebec. We were delayed there for two days. Every thing was in confusion. A large number of ships had arrived, and all were filled with sick. The authorities were taken by surprise; and as no arrangements had ever been made for such a state of things the suffering was extreme. The arrival of the Tecumseh with her frightful record of deaths, and with several hundred sick still on board, completed the confusion. At last the passengers were removed somehow, I know not how or when, for I myself on the evening of our arrival was struck down by the fever. I suppose that Frank Brandon may have nursed me at first; but of that I am not sure. There was fearful disorder. There were few nurses and fewer doctors; and as fast as the sick died they were hurried hastily into shallow graves in the sand. I was sick for two or three weeks, and knew nothing of what was going on. The first thing that I saw on coming to my senses was Edith Brandon.

She was fearfully changed. Unutterable grief dwelt upon her sweet young face, which also was pale and wan from the sickness through which she had passed. An awful feeling shot through me. My first question was, “Is your mother on shore?”

She looked at me for a moment in solemn silence, and, slowly raising her hand, pointed upward.

“Your brother?” I gasped.

She turned her head away. I was silent. They were dead, then. O God! and this child—what had she not been suffering? My mind at once, in its agony of sympathy with her, burst through the clouds which sickness had thrown around it. “Poor child!” I said. “And why are you here?”

“Where else can I go?” she answered, mournfully.

“At least, you should not wear yourself out by my bedside.”

“You are the only one left whom I know. I owe you far more than the small attendance which I have given you.”

“But will you not take some rest?”

“Hush! Wait till you are stronger. You are too weak now to think of these things.”

She laid her thin hand on my forehead gently. I turned my head away, and burst into a flood of tears. Why was it that this child was called upon to endure such agony? Why, in the midst of that agony, did she come to me to save my life? I did not resist her any longer on that day; but the next day I was stronger, and made her go and repose herself.

For two successive days she came back. On the third day she did not appear. The fourth day also she was absent. Rude nurses attended to me. They knew nothing of her. My anxiety inspired me with such energy that on the fourth day I rose from my bed and staggered about to find her if possible.

All was still confusion. Thousands of sick were on the island. The mistake of the first week had not yet been repaired. No one knew any thing of Edith. I sought her through all the wards. I went to the superintendent, and forced him to make inquiries about her. No one could tell any thing.

My despair was terrible. I forced the superintendent to call up all the nurses and doctors, and question them all, one by one. At last an old Irish woman, with an awful look at me, hinted that she could tell something about her, and whispered a word or two in the superintendent’s ear. He started back, with a fearful glance.

“What is it? Tell, in God’s name!”

“The dead-house,” he murmured.

“Where is it? Take me there!” I cried to the woman. I clutched her arm and staggered after her.

It was a long, low shed, open on all sides. Twelve bodies lay there. In the middle of the row was Edith. She was more beautiful than an angel. A smile wreathed her lips; her eyes looked as though she slumbered. I rushed up to her and caught her in my arms. The next moment I fell senseless.

When I revived I was lying in one of the sick-sheds, with a crowd of sufferers around me. I had only one thought, and that was Edith. I rose at once, weak and trembling, but the resolve of my soul gave strength to my body. An awful fear had taken possession of me, which was accompanied by a certain wild hope. I hurried, with staggering feet, to the dead-house.

All the bodies were gone. New ones had come in.

“Where is she?” I cried to the old woman who had charge there. She knew to whom I referred.

“Buried,” said she.

I burst out into a torrent of imprecations. “Where have they buried her? Take me to the place!” I cried, as I flung a piece of gold to the woman. She grasped it eagerly. “Bring a spade, and come quick, for God’s sake! She is not dead!”

How did I have such a mad fancy? I will tell you. This ship-fever often terminates in a sort of stupor, in which death generally takes place. Sometimes, however, the patient who has fallen into this stupor revives again. It is known to the physicians as the “trance state.” I had seen cases of this at sea. Several times people were thrown overboard when I thought that they did not have all the signs of death, and at last, in two cases of which I had charge, I detained the corpses three days, in spite of the remonstrances of the other passengers. These two revived. By this I knew that some of those who were thrown overboard were not dead. Did I feel horror at this, my Teresa? No. “Pass away,” I said, “unhappy ones. You are not dead. You live in a better life than this. What matters it whether you died by the fever or by the sea?”

But when I saw Edith as she lay there my soul felt assured that she was not dead, and an unutterable convulsion of sorrow overwhelmed me. Therefore I fainted. The horror of that situation was too much for me. To think of that angelic girl about to be covered up alive in the ground; to think of that sweet young life, which had begun so brightly, terminating amidst such black darkness!

“Now God help me!” I cried, as I hurried on after the woman; “and bring me there in time.” There! Where? To the place of the dead. It was there that I had to seek her.

“How long had she been in that house before I fainted?” I asked, fearfully.

“Twenty-four hours.”

“And when did I faint?”

“Yesterday.”

A pang shot through me. “Tell me,” I cried, hoarsely, “when she was buried.”

“Last night.”

“O God!” I groaned, and I could say no more; but with new strength given to me in that hour of agony I rushed on.

It was by the eastern shore of the island. A wide flat was there, washed on one side by the river. Here more than a thousand mounds arose. Alas! could I ever hope to find her!

“Do you know where they have laid her?” I asked, tremblingly.

“Yes,” said the woman, confidently.

Hope returned faintly. She led the way.

The moon beamed out brightly from behind a cloud, illumining the waste of mounds. The river murmured solemnly along the shore. All my senses were overwhelmed in the madness of that hour. The moon seemed enlarged to the dimensions of a sky; the murmur of the river sounded like a cataract, and in the vast murmur I heard voices which seemed then like the voices of the dead. But the lustre of that exaggerated glow, and the booming concord of fancied spirit-voices were all contemned as trifles. I cared for nothing either natural or supernatural. Only one thought was present—the place where she was laid.

We reached it at last. At the end of a row of graves we stopped. “Here,” said the woman, “are twelve graves. These were made last night. These are those twelve which you saw.”

“And where—where, O God, is SHE!”

“There,” replied the woman, pointing to one which was the third from the end.

“Do not deceive me!” I cried, imploringly. “Are you sure? For I will tear up all these till I find her.”

“I am sure, for I was the one who buried her. I and a man—”

I seized the spade and turned up the soil. I labored incessantly for what seemed an endless period. I had thrown out much earth but had not yet reached her. I felt my fitful strength failing me. My mind, too, seemed entering into a state of delirium. At last my knees gave way, and I sank down just as my spade touched something which gave back a hollow sound.

My knees gave way, and I sank down. But I would not give up. I tore up handfuls of earth and threw them into the air.

“Oh, Edith!” I cried, “I am here! I am coming! I am coming!”

“Come, Sir,” said the woman, suddenly, in her strong voice, yet pityingly. “You can do nothing. I will dig her out in a minute.”

{Illustration: “I TOOK HER IN MY ARMS AND BROUGHT HER FORTH FROM THE GRAVE,” ETC.}

“God forever bless you!” I cried, leaping out and giving place to her. I watched her as she threw out the earth. Hungrily I gazed, devouring that dark aperture with my eyes till at last the rough boards appeared.

Then I leaped down. I put my fingers at the edge and tore at it till it gave way. The lid was only fastened with a few nails. My bleeding fingers clutched it. It yielded to my frantic exertions.

O my God! was there ever a sight on earth like that which now met my eyes as I raised the lid and looked below? The moon, which was high in the sky, streamed down directly into the narrow cell. It showed me the one whom I sought. Its bright beams threw a lustre round that face which was upturned toward me. Ah me! how white was that face; like the face of some sleeping maiden carved in alabaster. Bathed in the moonbeams it lay before me, all softened and refined and made pure; a face of unearthly beauty. The dark hair caught the moon’s rays, and encircled the head like a crown of immortality. Still the eyes were closed as though in slumber; still the lips were fixed into a smile. She lay as one who had fallen into a deep, sweet sleep—as one who in that sleep has dreams, in which are visions of more than earthly beauty, and scenes of more than mortal happiness.

Now it was with me as though at that unequaled vision I had drawn into my inmost being some sudden stimulus—a certain rapture of newborn strength; strength no longer fitful and spasmodic, but firm, well fortified and well sustained.

I took her in my arms and brought her forth from the grave into the life of earth.

Ah me! how light a thing was that frail and slender figure which had been worn down by the unparalleled suffering through which she had passed. This thought transfixed me with a pang of anguish—even awed the rapture that I felt at clasping her in my arms.

But now that I had her, where was I to seek for a place of shelter? I turned to the woman and asked: “Is there any secluded place where she may sleep undisturbed till she wakes—”

“No, there is none but what is crowded with the sick and dying in all this island.”

“I must have some place.”

“There is only one spot that is quiet.”

“What one?”

“The dead-house.”

I shuddered. “No, not there. See,” said I, and I handed her a piece of gold. “Find me some place and you shall have still more.”

“Well,” she said, hesitatingly, “I have the room where me and my man live. I suppose we could give up that.”

“Take me there, then.”

“Shall I help you carry her?”

“No,” I answered, drawing back my pure Edith from her outstretched hands. “No, I will carry her.”

The woman went on without a word. She led the way back to the low and dismal sheds which lay there like a vast charnel-house, and thence to a low hut some distance away from all, where she opened a door. She spoke a few words to a man, who finally withdrew. A light was burning. A rude cot was there. Here I laid the one whom I carried.

“Come here,” said I, “three times a day. I will pay you well for this.”

The woman left. All night long I watched. She lay unmoved and unchanged. Where was her spirit wandering? Soared it among the splendors of some far-off world? Lingered it amidst the sunshine of heavenly glory? Did her seraphic soul move amidst her peers in the assemblage of the holy? Was she straying amidst the trackless paths of ether with those whom she had loved in life, and who had gone before?

All night long I watched her as she lay with her marble face and her changeless smile. There seemed to be communicated to me an influence from her which opened the eyes of my spiritual sense; and my spirit sought to force itself upon her far-off perceptions, that so it might catch her notice and bring her back to earth.

The morning dawned. There was no change. Mid-day came, and still there was no change. I know not how it was, but the superintendent had heard about the grave being opened, and found me in the hut. He tried to induce me to give back to the grave the one whom I had rescued. The horror of that request was so tremendous that it force me into passionless calm. When I refused he threatened. At his menace I rejoined in such language that he turned pale.

“Murderer!” said I, sternly, “is it not enough that you have sent to the grave many wretches who were not dead? Do you seek to send back to death this single one whom I have rescued? Do you want all Canada and all the world to ring with the account of the horrors done here, where people are buried alive? See, she is not dead. She is only sleeping. And yet you put her in the grave.”

“She is dead!” he cried, in mingled fear and anger—“and she must be buried.”

“She is not dead,” said I, sternly, as I glared on him out of my intensity of anguish—“she is not dead: and if you try to send her to death again you must first send me. She shall not pass to the grave except over my corpse, and over the corpse of the first murderer that dares to lay hands on her.”

He started back—he and those who were with him. “The man is mad,” they said.

They left me in peace. I grow excited as I write. My hand trembles. Let me be calm.

She awoke that night. It was midnight, and all was still. She opened her eyes suddenly, and looked full at me with an earnest and steadfast stare. At last a long, deep-drawn sigh broke the stillness of that lone chamber.

“Back again”—she murmured, in a scarce audible voice—“among men, and to earth. O friends of the Realm of Light, must I be severed from your lofty communion!”

As she spoke thus the anguish which I had felt at the grave was renewed. “You have brought me back,” said she, mournfully.

“No,” I returned, sadly—“not I. It was not God’s will that you should leave this life. He did not send death to you. You were sleeping, and I brought you to this place.”

“I know all,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “I heard all while my spirit was away. I know where you found me.”

“I am weary,” she said, after a silence. Her eyes closed again. But this time the trance was broken. She slept with long, deep breathing, interrupted by frequent sighs. I watched her through the long night. At first fever came. Then it passed. Her sleep became calm, and she slumbered like a weary child.

Early in the morning the superintendent came, followed by a dozen armed men. He entered with a frown. I met him with my hand upraised to hush him, and led him gently to the bedside.

“See,” I whispered—“but for me she would have been BURIED ALIVE!”

The man seemed frozen into dumbness. He stood ghastly white with horror, thick drops started from his forehead, his teeth chattered, he staggered away. He looked at me with a haunted face, such as belongs to one who thinks he has seen a spirit.

“Spare me,” he faltered; “do not ruin me. God knows I have tried to do my best!”

I waved him off. “Leave me. You have nothing to fear.” He turned away with his white face, and departed in silence with his men.

After a long sleep Edith waked again. She said nothing. I did not wish her to speak. She lay awake, yet with closed eyes, thinking such thoughts as belong to one, and to one alone, who had known what she had known.

I did not speak to her, for she was to me a holy being, not to be addressed lightly. Yet she did not refuse nourishment, and grew stronger, until at last I was able to have her moved to Quebec. There I obtained proper accommodations for her and good nurses.

I have told you what she was before this. Subsequently there came a change. The nurses and the doctors called it a stupor.

There was something in her face which inspired awe among all who saw her. If it is the soul of man that gives expression to the features, then her soul must have been familiar with things unknown to us. How often have I seen her in walking across the room stop suddenly and stand fixed on the spot, musing and sad! She commonly moved about as though she saw nothing, as though she walked in a dream, with eyes half closed, and sometimes murmuring inaudible words. The nurses half loved and half feared her. Yet there were some little children in the house who felt all love and no fear, for I have seen her smiling on them with a smile so sweet that it seemed to me as if they stood in the presence of their guardian angel. Strange, sad spirit, what thoughts, what memories are these which make her life one long reverie, and have taken from her all power to enjoy the beautiful that dwells on earth! She fills all my thoughts with her loneliness, her tears, and her spiritual face, bearing the marks of scenes that can never be forgotten. She lives and moves amidst her recollections. What is it that so overwhelms all her thoughts? That face of hers appears as though it had bathed itself in the atmosphere of some diviner world than this: and her eyes seem as if they may have gazed upon the Infinite Mystery.

Now from the few words which she has casually dropped I gather this to be her own belief. That when she fell into the state of trance her soul was parted from her body, though still by an inexplicable sympathy she was aware of what was passing around her lifeless form. Yet her soul had gone forth into that spiritual world toward which we look from this earth with such eager wonder. It had mingled there with the souls of others. It had put forth new powers, and learned the use of new faculties. Then that soul was called back to its body.

This maiden—this wonder among mortals—is not a mortal, she is an exiled soul. I have seen her sit with tears streaming down her face, tears such as men shed in exile. For she is like a banished man who has only one feeling, a longing, yearning homesickness. She has been once in that radiant world for a time which we call three days in our human calculations, but which to her seems indefinite; for as she once said—and it is a pregnant thought, full of meaning—there is no time there, all is infinite duration. The soul has illimitable powers; in an instant it can live years, and she in those three days had the life of ages. Her former life on earth has now but a faint hold upon her memory in comparison with that life among the stars. The sorrow that her loved ones endured has become eclipsed by the knowledge of the blessedness in which she found them.

Alas! it is a blessing to die, and it is only a curse to rise from the dead. And now she endures this exile with an aching heart, with memories that are irrepressible, with longings unutterable, and yearnings that cannot be expressed for that starry world and that bright companionship from which she has been recalled. So she sometimes speaks. And little else can she say amidst her tears. Oh, sublime and mysterious exile, could I but know what you know, and have but a small part of that secret which you can not explain!

For she can not tell what she witnessed there. She sometimes wishes to do so, but can not. When asked directly, she sinks into herself and is lost in thought. She finds no words. It is as when we try to explain to a man who has been always blind the scenes before our eyes. We can not explain them to such a man. And so with her. She finds in her memory things which no human language has been made to express. These languages were made for the earth, not for heaven. In order to tell me what she knows, she would need the language of that world, and then she could not explain it, for I could not understand it.

Only once I saw her smile, and that was when one of the nurses casually mentioned, with horror, the death of some acquaintance. “Death!” she murmured, and her eyes lighted up with a kind of ecstasy. “Oh, that I might die!” She knows no blessing on earth except that which we consider a curse, and to her the object of all her wishes is this one thing—Death. I shall not soon forget that smile. It seemed of itself to give a new meaning to death.

Do I believe this, so wild a theory, the very mention of which has carried me beyond myself? I do not know. All my reason rebels. It scouts the monstrous idea. But here she stands before me, with her memories and thoughts, and her wonderful words, few, but full of deepest meaning—words which I shall never forget—and I recognize something before which Reason falters. Whence this deep longing of hers? Why when she thinks of death does her face grow thus radiant, and her eyes kindle with hope? Why does she so pine and grow sick with desire? Why does her heart thus ache as day succeeds to day, and she finds herself still under the sunlight, with the landscapes and the music of this fair earth still around her?

Once, in some speculations of mine, which I think I mentioned to you, Teresina, I thought that if a man could reach that spiritual world he would look with contempt upon the highest charms that belong to this. Here is one who believes that she has gone through this experience, and all this earth, with all its beauty, is now an object of indifference to her. Perhaps you may ask, Is she sane? Yes, dear, as sane as I am, but with a profounder experience and a diviner knowledge.

After I had been in Quebec about a month I learned that one of the regiments stationed here was commanded by Colonel Henry Despard. I called on him, and he received me with unbounded delight. He made me tell him all about myself, and I imparted to him as much of the events of the voyage and quarantine as was advisable. I did not go into particulars to any extent, of course. I mentioned nothing about the grave. That, dearest sister, is a secret between you, and me, and her. For if it should be possible that she should ever be restored to ordinary human sympathy and feeling, it will not be well that all the world should know what has happened to her.

His regiment was ordered to Halifax, and I concluded to comply with his urgent solicitations and accompany him. It is better for her at any rate that there should be more friends than one to protect her. Despard, like the doctors, supposes that she is in a stupor.

The journey here exercised a favorable influence over her. Her strength increased to a marked degree, and she has once or twice spoken about the past. She told me that her father wrote to his son Louis in Australia some weeks before his death, and urged him to come home. She thinks that he is on his way to England. The Colonel and I at once thought that he ought to be sought after without delay, and he promised to write to his nephew, your old playmate, who, he tells me, is to be a neighbor of yours.

If he is still the one whom I remember—intellectual yet spiritual, with sound reason, yet a strong heart, if he is still the Courtenay Despard who, when a boy, seemed to me to look out upon the world before him with such lofty poetic enthusiasm—then, Teresella, you should show him this diary, for it will cause him to understand things which he ought to know. I suppose it would be unintelligible to Mr. Thornton, who is a most estimable man, but who, from the nature of his mind, if he read this, would only conclude that the writer was insane.

At any rate, Mr. Thornton should be informed of the leading facts, so that he may see if something can be done to alleviate the distress, or to avenge the wrongs of one whose father was the earliest benefactor of his family.

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