"Won't that be fine, Edith; and we will get to see the mountaineers, and maybe his home," said Star, with all that fullness of anticipation that comes to one emancipated from a round of daily worry and abject commonplaceness, as they reached the top of the flight of steps, up which Star had been assisting Edith.
Edith looked up into the face of Star with a smile, showing neither hope nor doubt, but full of that wearying pain that leaves a sore upon the heart.
"It will be very pleasant, no doubt, Star," returned Edith; "but I am so weak that I am afraid I cannot enjoy anything. How kind and good you are to me," and Edith glanced up with tears; "you take so much pains in comforting me, and wishing for my welfare. I would be lost, dear Star, if it were not for you—lost—utterly lost," and the poor nerve-wrecked, distracted little Edith fell into Star's arms through utter exhaustion.
Edith was carried to her room, and restoratives were administered. The contemplated journey was therefore postponed for a week to await her recuperation. The weeks passed, and Edith was still no better. Nobody saw her condition. Nobody quite understood what it was. They were all blind.
Lying on her bed one day, when the sun was shining, and the fragrance of the flowers and the songs of the birds came in the open window as a caressing wave of sympathy, Edith was roused from her unpleasant meditations by her father, who came in to see her. Sitting down by her bed, the father took up one hand of his child and petted it, with his eyes full of the tears of his abiding grief.
"Edith, dear," he said, with his voice full of emotion, "do you think you can now withstand the trip to the mountains?"
"I think I will be just as well off here, papa," she answered, faintly and indifferently.
"If you are able, we will go at once, dear," said the father, noticing how low her spirits were, and wishing to do anything that would tend to revive them. "I believe a change of air and scenes will do you good. Do you think you can make the trip?"
"I will try, papa—any place; any place—it makes no difference, papa. I am so weak all the time, papa, that I am—"
"Don't; don't, Edith, my dear child," he said, with anguish in his kind heart, and parental remorse on his conscience. "You would not have been in this state, pet, had you not become so wrought up over that Monroe affair, I know; and I am to blame for being so blind, so blind—so—"