“Ah, but they are full of courage, magnanimity and benevolence,” said Catherine.
“Archer Clifton is of a very jealous and suspicious nature—was his betrothed inclined to coquetry?”
“Oh, I do not know, sir, but the misunderstanding did not originate in any charge against Miss Clifton. It was something of which Miss Clifton accused him, but of what, I do not know!—he did not say. My dear Mr. Saunders, I told you what troubled me, to satisfy your kind heart, and allay your benevolent anxiety on my account. And now please forgive me, for beseeching you not to question me farther upon the subject. They—the parties, I mean—are far removed above my sphere of thought and action—and the investigation of their motives of action, by me, seems to involve a certain indelicacy—I fear even impertinence of interference,” said Catherine, gently.
“Yet, far above your sphere of thought and action as you say they are, they are not—at least one of them is not—above your sphere of sympathy and emotion. His sorrow affects you with sorrow!”
The blood rushed to Kate’s brow, and she remained silent.
The old man and the maiden soon after arose from the table. She washed up the dishes, tidied up the house, and collected the poor preacher’s soiled and broken clothes, and tied them in a bundle to take away with her to wash and mend. Then she tied on her hat, and took leave of him; the old man calling her back, again and again, with vague, prophetic meaning, to repeat over and over—“God bless you, my child! God bless you!” It was his dying benediction.
A poor mountaineer, that called early the next morning to get the poor minister to the poor to come and bury his wife—found the old man dead.
CHAPTER IX.
WOMAN’S PRIDE.
The bird when she pineth may hush her song,
Till the hour when her heart shall again be strong;