“But, Annie,” Jimmie began, and Annie stopped him, saying:
“Wait, Jimmie, till I am through. This is my hour now. I have delayed telling you all this, for various reasons. Your mother knew who I was before I went to Washington, and she excused you as far as was possible. That I have promised to be your wife is proof that I have forgiven the pangs of disappointment I endured; for, Jimmie, I did suffer for a time. There was so little in the world to make me happy, and you had been so kind, that I fully believed in and trusted you; and when I found I was deceived, my heart ached as hard, perhaps, as the heart of a girl of fourteen can ache from such a cause.”
“Poor Annie! poor little Lulu!” Jimmie said, as he clasped one of Annie’s hands in his own, and his voice expressed all the sorrow and tenderness he felt for Annie who continued:
“Such childish loves are usually short-lived, you know, but mine was the first pleasant dream I had known since my parents died, and I went to my Aunt Belknap, in New Haven. She meant to be kind, I suppose, and in a certain way she was. She gave me a good education, and every advantage within her means. She took me to Newport and Saratoga, and the New York hotels, and she turned her back on George Graham, whom we met at Long Branch, where he was making some repairs upon an engine. A mechanic was not her idea of a husband for her niece. She preferred that I should marry a man of sixty, who had already the portraits of three wives in his handsome house at Meriden; but then, for each portrait he counted over two hundred thousand dollars, and half a million covers a multitude of defects and a great many wives. I would not marry that man, and as the result of my persistent refusal, my life with my aunt became so unbearable that, when Providence again threw George in my way, and he asked me to be his wife, I consented, and I never regretted the step. He was very kind to me, and I loved him so much, that when he died, I thought my heart died too, for he was my all.”
Annie was very beautiful in her excitement as she paid this tribute to her deceased husband, and Jimmie saw that she was beautiful, but felt relieved when she left George Graham, and spoke of Rose, who had come to her like an angel of light, and made the burden easier to bear.
“I had no suspicion that she was the soi-disant Dick Lee’s sister, or that my boy-hero was not Dick Lee, until just before you came home for the first time, and then I thought I must go away, for I did not care to meet you. But Rose prevented me, and I am glad now that she did.”
“And I am glad, too,” Jimmie said. “Your staying has been the means of untold good to me, darling,—it was the memory of your sweet, holy life and character which led me, a wretch at Andersonville, to seek the Saviour whom you have loved so long. God has led us both in strange paths. We have suffered a great deal,—you mentally, I physically, and only what I deserved; but let us hope that the night is passed, and the morning of our happy future dawning upon us. We are both young yet,—you twenty-three, and I only twenty-six. We have a long life to look forward to, and I thank God for it; but most of all, I thank Him for giving me my darling Annie,—my dear little Lulu! Does Rose know that you are Lulu?”
Mrs. Carleton had thought it better not to add to Rose’s excitement by telling her who Annie was, while Jimmie’s fate was shrouded in so much gloom; then, after his return, she decided that Annie should have the satisfaction of telling herself, and thus Rose was still in ignorance with regard to Annie’s identity with the Pequot. But Annie told her that night, and Rose’s eyes were like stars, as she smothered Annie with kisses, and declared it was all like some strange story she had read.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHARLIE.
