An hour after the tolling bell arrested the attention of many, and of the few who asked for whom it tolled nearly all involuntarily sighed and said, "Poor Harry! Died before he came home!"
It was the night before the burial, and in the back parlor stood a narrow coffin containing all that was mortal of Lizzie Dayton. In the front parlor Bridget and another domestic kept watch over the body of their young mistress. Twelve o'clock rang from the belfry of St. Luke's church, and then the midnight silence was broken by the shrill scream of the locomotive as the eastern train thundered into the depot. But the senses of the Irish girls were too profoundly locked in sleep to heed that common sound; neither did they hear the outer door, which by accident had been left unlocked, swing softly open, nor saw they the tall figure which passed by them into the next room—the room where stood the coffin.
Suddenly through the house there echoed a cry, so long, so loud, so despairing, that every sleeper started from their rest, and hurried with nervous haste to the parlor, where they saw Harry Graham, bending in wild agony over the body of his darling Lizzie, who never before had turned a deaf ear to his impassioned words of endearment. He had received his sister's letter, and started immediately for home, but owing to some delay did not reach there in time to see her alive. Anxious to know the worst, he had not stopped at his father's house, but seeing a light in Mr. Dayton's parlors, hastened thither. Finding the door unlocked, he entered, and on seeing the two servant girls asleep, his heart beat quickly with apprehension. Still he was unprepared for the shock which awaited him, when on the coffin and her who slept within it his eye first rested. He did not faint, nor even weep, but when his friends came about him with words of sympathy he only answered, "Lizzie, Lizzie, she is dead!"
During the remainder of that sad night he sat by the coffin pressing his hand upon the icy forehead until its coldness seemed to benumb his faculties, for when in the morning his parents and sister came he scarcely noticed them; and still the world, misjudging ever, looked upon his calm face and tearless eye, and said that all too lightly had he loved the gentle girl whose last thoughts and words had been of him. Ah, they knew not the utter wreck the death of that young girl had made, of the bitter grief, deeper and more painful because no tear-drop fell to moisten its feverish agony. They buried her, and then back from the grave came the two heart-broken men, the father and Harry Graham, each going to his own desolate home, the one to commune with the God who had given and taken away, and the other to question the dealings of that Providence which had taken from him his all.
Days passed, and nothing proved of any avail to win Harry from the deep despair which seemed to have settled upon him. At length Anna bethought her of the soft, silken curl which had been reserved for him. Quickly she found it, and taking with her the Bible repaired to her brother's room. Twining her arms around his neck she told him of the death-scene, of which he before had refused to hear. She finished her story by suddenly holding to view the long, bright ringlet which once adorned the fair head now resting in the grave. Her plan was successful, for bursting into tears Harry wept nearly two hours. From that time he seemed better, and was frequently found bathed in tears, and bending over Lizzie's Bible, which now was his daily companion.
Lucy, too, seemed greatly changed. She had loved her sister as devotedly as one of her nature could love, and for her death she mourned sincerely. Lizzie's words of love and gentle persuasion had not been without their effect, and when Mr. Dayton saw how kind, how affectionate and considerate of other people's feelings his daughter had become, he felt that Lizzie had not died in vain.
Seven times have the spring violets blossomed, seven times the flowers of summer bloomed, seven times have the autumnal stores been gathered in, and seven times have the winds of winter sighed over the New England hills since Lizzie was laid to rest. In her home there have been few changes. Mr. Dayton's hair is whiter than it was of old, and the furrows on his brow deeper and more marked. Grandma, quiet and gentle as ever, knits on day after day, ever and anon speaking of "our dear little Lizzie, who died years ago."
Lucy is still unmarried, and satisfied, too, that it should be so. A patient, self-sacrificing Christian, she strives to make up to her father for the loss of one over whose memory she daily weeps, and to whose death she accuses herself of being accessory. Dr. Benton and his rather fashionable wife live in their great house, ride in their handsome carriage, give large dinner parties, play chess after supper, and then the old doctor nods over his evening paper, while Berintha nods over a piece of embroidery, intended to represent a little dog chasing a butterfly and which would as readily be taken for that as for anything else, and for anything else as that.
Two years ago a pale young missionary departed to carry the news of salvation to the heathen land. Some one suggested that he should take with him a wife, but he shook his head mournfully, saying, "I have one wife in heaven." The night before he left home, he might have been seen, long after midnight, seated upon a grassy grave, where the flowers of summer were growing. Around the stone which marks the spot rose bushes have clustered so thickly as to hide from view the words there written, but push them aside and you will read, "Our darling Lizzie."