Three years have passed away since the time when first we met with Maggie Lee—three years which seemed so long to her then, and which have brought her so much pain. She has watched the snow and ice as they melted from off the hill-side. She has seen the grass spring up by the open door—has heard the robin singing in the old oak tree—has felt the summer air upon her cheek. She has reached her eighteenth birthday, and ere another sun shall rise will indeed be free.
‘Oh, I cannot see her die,’ cried poor little Ben, when he saw the pallor stealing over her face, and running out into the yard he threw himself upon the grass, sobbing bitterly, ‘My sister, oh, my sister.’
‘Is she worse?’ said the voice of Graham Thornton.
He was passing in the street and had heard the wailing cry. Ben knew that in some way Judge Thornton was connected with his grief, but he answered respectfully, ‘She is dying. Oh, Maggie, Maggie. What shall I do without her?’
‘You shall live with me,’ answered Mr. Thornton.
’Twas a sudden impulse, and thinking the assurance that her brother should be thus provided for would be a comfort to the dying girl, he glided noiselessly into the sick room. But she did not know him, and falling on his knees by her side, he wept like a little child. ‘She was sleeping,’ they said, at last, and lifting up his head, he looked upon her as she slept, while a fear, undefined and terrible, crept over him, she lay so still and motionless. At length rising to his feet, he bent him down so low that his lips touched hers, and then, without a word, he went out from her presence, for he knew that Maggie Lee was dead!
The next day, at sunset they buried her in the valley where the mound could always be seen from the window of Graham Thornton’s room, and, as with folded arms and aching heart he stood by, while they lowered the coffin to its resting-place, he felt glad that it was so. ‘It will make me a better man,’ he thought, ‘for when evil passions rise, and I am tempted to do wrong, I have only to look across the fields towards the little grave which but for me would not have been made so soon, and I shall be strengthened to do what is right.’
Slowly and sadly he walked away, going back to his home, where, in a luxuriously furnished chamber, on a couch whose silken hangings swept the floor, lay his wife, and near her his infant daughter, that day four weeks of age. As yet she had no name, and when the night had closed upon them, and it was dark within the room, Graham Thornton drew his chair to the side of his wife, and in low, subdued tones, told her of the fair young girl that day buried from his sight. Helen was his wife, a gentle, faithful wife, and he could not tell her how much he had loved Maggie Lee, and that but for his foolish pride she would perhaps at that moment have been where Helen was, instead of sleeping in her early grave. No, he could not tell her this, but he told her Maggie had been very dear to him, and that he feared it was for the love of him that she had died. ‘I wronged her, Nellie, darling,’ he said, smoothing the golden tresses which lay upon the pillow. ‘I broke her heart, and now that she is gone I would honour her memory by calling our first-born daughter Maggie Lee. ’Tis a beautiful name,’ he continued, ‘and you will not refuse my request.’
There was much of pride in Helen Thornton’s nature, and she did refuse, for days and even weeks; but when she saw the shadows deepened on the brow of her husband, who would stand for hours looking out through the open window towards the valley where slept the village dead, and when the mother, in pity of her son, joined also in the request, she yielded; and, as if the sacrifice were accepted and the atonement good, the first smile which ever dimpled the infant’s cheek, played on its mouth, as with its large, strange, bright eyes fixed upon its father’s face, it was baptized ‘Maggie Lee.’