The Earth Trembled

by Edward Payson Roe

He looked up quickly, and seeing Mara's lustrous eyes and flushed face, divined instantly who she was.

"Is not this Miss Wallingford?" he asked, his face expressing glad anticipation as he began to gather up his crutches.

"Do not rise," cried Mara, coming forward instantly with outstretched hands.

But he was on his crutches, and said feelingly, "Heaven forbid that I should receive the daughter of my old friend with so little respect." He took the girl's face into his hands, and looked earnestly into her eyes. "Yes," he resumed gently, "you are Sidney Wallingford's child. God bless you, my dear," and he kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You won't mind this from an old comrade of your father," he said as he made her take his chair and sat down near her. "We have been bereft of so much that what remains has become very precious. I know all about you, Mara."

Tears were in the girl's eyes as she replied falteringly, "And I know of you, sir, and have longed to meet you. You can scarcely know how much your words mean to me when you say you were my father's comrade and friend. I knew this, but it seems more real to me now, and I feel that seeing you is coming as near as I can to seeing him."

"My poor child! Would to God that he had lived, for you would have been his pride and solace, as my daughter is to me. When I saw you last you were a little black-eyed girl and happily did not understand your loss, although you looked as if you did. I never thought so many years would pass before I saw you again, but we have had to fight some of our hardest battles since the war," and he sighed deeply.

"How soon can I meet your daughter?" Mara asked, her eyes full of sympathy.

"Very soon. I urged her to take a walk on the Battery, for she has not been very well of late. I said I knew all about you, as I have been told of your loyalty and brave efforts and your kindness to my aged cousin, but now that I see you, I feel that I know very little. Your face is full of stories, my dear child. You are young, and yet you look as if the memories of the past had made you far older than your years warrant That is the trouble with us. We have much more to look back upon than to look forward to. Yet it should not be so with you."

"It can scarcely be otherwise," Mara answered sadly; "you have touched the very core of our trouble, and I suppose it is the trouble with us all who are so closely linked with the past—we have so little to look forward to. But now that you can tell me about my father the past seems so near and real that I do not wish to think about anything else."

Time sped rapidly as Captain Bodine recalled the scenes and incidents of his life which were associated with his old commander, and Mara listened with an absorbed, tearful interest which touched him deeply. The proud, reserved expression of his face had passed away utterly, and the girl appreciated the change. His sympathy, the gentleness of his tones and the profound respect which was blended with his paternal manner made her feel that her father's friend was already her friend in a very near and sacred sense. While he was reserved about his own affairs, and she also was conscious of a secret of which she could never speak, they had so much in common that she felt that they could talk for hours. But the old lady in the apartment above grew impatient, and at last Hannah stood courtesying in the door as she said, "Missus p'sent her compl'ments an' say would be glad to see you."