The day was passed with a social group of friends, among whom Ned Williams, his sister Ellen, and young Willie Danforth, were the most lively and mirthful. At night-fall the hermit appeared, and was warmly received. He sat down by aunt Mary, and conversed calmly, as was his wont.
Florence glanced about the apartment in search of her husband, wondering that he did not come forward to welcome his uncle, but he had disappeared. She flew up stairs to their apartment, and beheld him sitting before a table, apparently absorbed in the contents of some volume. Stepping softly forward, she leaned over his shoulder. He was reading her journal.
"Thief!" she exclaimed, covering the page with her little white hands, "where did you find this?"
"It attracted my notice this morning when I was packing your books for removal," returned he. "I did not know I was so well loved before, Florence," he added, with a provoking smile.
"Look out that I do not cease to love you altogether," said she, shaking her tiny finger playfully in his face, "if you steal into my private affairs in this way. But come below now," she continued, taking his hand; "uncle Ralph has arrived and waits to see you."
They descended to the parlor, and after the pleasant evening was passed and the guests severally departed, the hermit presented to his nephew the fortune left him by his long-deceased father. It was much larger than Edgar had ever supposed. He amply remunerated the care and protection of his kind guardian, and besought him to forsake the forest-hut and dwell beneath his grateful roof. But the recluse waived the entreaties of the young, happy couple.
He "could not desert his home in the cedars. It was the spot where the most placid years of his life had been passed. He would frequently visit the abode of Edgar, and also that of his lately-recovered sister, but still chose to retain the wild-wood habitation as a retreat when melancholy moods rendered him unfit for all society, and he could only find consolation in the lone solitude of nature."
So, with a fervent blessing on their bright young heads, he departed on his solitary way to the distant forest.
And the starry night stole on, while all was quiet and peaceful above and around the mansion of "Summer Home."
THE LAST CHAPTER.