"Well, I suppose I must," Richmond says, resigning himself as a man always must in such cases, and holding out his arms to "Tarley," who, with an exultant crow, leaps in and immediately buries two chubby little hands in papa's hair. "Where's Georgia?"
"Oh, down at the cottage, of course," says the lady, laughing; "when is Georgia ever to be found anywhere else? Dear Miss Jerusha! it does make her so happy to have her there; so while we live in Burnfield we may as well let her stay there."
"Oh, certainly—certainly," replies Richmond, with tears in his eyes as Master "Tarley" gives an unusually vigorous pull to his scalp-lock. "And by the way, my dear, guess from whom I heard to-day?"
"Who—Warren?" inquires Georgia eagerly.
"No—Curtis," says his excellency, laughing. "Poor Dick's done for at last. Miss Maggie What's-her-name Leonard, the one with the curls and always laughing, has finished him. As the king in the play says, 'I could have better spared a better man.'"
"Why, you don't mean to say he has married her?" says Georgia, in extreme surprise. "Well, I am surprised. Where is he now?"
"Off in the South for a bridal tour, and then he will return and resume his duties as my secretary. There goes the tea-bell. Here, nurse, take Master 'Tarley.' Come, Georgia."
Look with me on another scene, reader. The beautiful moon rides high over the blue Adriatic; the bright cloudless sky of glorious Italy is overhead, that sky of which poets have sung, and artists have dreamed, and old, sweet romancers have pictured, and gazing up at its serene beauty with uncovered brow, stands a poet from a foreign land, with his blue-eyed bride. You know them both; you need no introduction; you cannot mistake them, for the lofty mien and gallant bearing of Warren, and the soft holy blue eyes and seraphic smile of Emily are unchanged. Some day, when they are tired wandering under the storied skies of the old world, they will come back to the land of their birth, but you and I will see them no more.
On the last scene of all let the curtain rise ere it drops again forever.
In a sunny corner of a sunny church-yard, where the sweet wild roses swing in the soft west wind, where trees wave and birds sing, and a little brook near murmurs dreamily as it flows along, is a grave, with a marble cross above, bearing the name of "Charles Wildair," and underneath the inscription, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Tread lightly, reader; hold your breath as you gaze. Kneel and pray in awe, for a saint lies there.