"Electra, my darling."
She lifted his head to her bosom, nestled her fingers into his cold palm, and leaned her cheek against his brow. Pressing his face close to hers, the grey eyes closed, and a smile throned itself on the parted lips. A slight tremor shook the limbs, a soft shuddering breath swept across the watcher's face, and the "golden bowl" was shivered, the "silver cord" was loosed.
The vigil was over, the burden was lifted from her shoulders, the weary ministry here ended; and shrouding her face in her arms, the lonely woman wept bitterly.
CHAPTER XV
AT HOME AGAIN
Four years had wrought material changes in the town of W——; new streets had been opened, new buildings erected, new forms trod the side-walks, new faces looked out of shop-windows, and flashing equipages, and new shafts of granite and marble stood in the cemetery to tell of many who had been gathered to their forefathers. If important revolutions had been effected in her early home, not less decided and apparent was the change which had taken place in the heiress of Huntingdon Hill; and having been eyed, questioned, scrutinized by the best families, and laid in the social scale, it was found a difficult matter to determine her weight as accurately as seemed desirable. In common parlance, "her education was finished,"—she was regularly and unmistakably "out." Having lost her aunt two years before her return, the duties of hostess devolved upon her, and she dispensed the hospitalities of her home with an easy, though stately elegance, surprising in one so inexperienced.
It chanced that Dr. Arnold was absent for some weeks after her arrival, and no sooner had he returned than he sought his quondam protégé. Entering unannounced, he paused suddenly as he caught sight of her standing before the fire, with Paragon at her feet. She lifted her head and came to meet him, holding out both hands, with a warm, bright smile.
"Oh, Dr. Arnold! I am so glad to see you once more. It was neither friendly nor hospitable to go off just as I came home, after long years of absence. I am very glad to see you."