Hodges was an accomplished rogue, and a second comer to the prison, and it is to be inferred that by the door of death "he went to his place," leaving the world none the poorer by his withdrawal from it; all the same, he is to be congratulated on his ultimate escape from the penal water cure.
It is May-day; and high tide with the Saganock. It is a brimful hurrying river, and, at this moment, fully verifies that distracting old saw, "Time and tide stay for no man." And here, amid budding lilacs and singing robins, some half head taller, and two good years older than on the day when she bade a final adieu to the prison, is May-blossom. On this sunny slope of the Parker lawn she is prospecting for early violets. Her sweet face has grown thinner. Violet circles underline her soft gray eyes. Her lips are as threads of scarlet wool, and, listening, you may hear her cough—deep and hollow. Alas! It is a sound to make the heart ache.
Soon wearied by her futile search, the child returns to her cosy corner on "the stoop," and there, curled up beneath the soft warm folds of an afghan, watches the westering sun, the fleecy clouds, and the familiar river speeding on to the sea.
Meantime, at the north door, Dr. Abel Foster, the family "medicine man," briskly alights from his buggy. Before his hand can touch the knocker it is opened by Miss Paulina herself. "Good afternoon, my dear lady; and so pussy is still ailing, is she?" cries the good doctor (this with assumed nonchalance, slightly overdone).
"Yes, Doctor Foster," replies Miss Parker; "and will you kindly sound her lungs to-day, and let me know the worst? One flinches indeed, but, if it must come—why, then—" an ominous quaver in the gentle voice; and the doctor shrewdly interrupts:
"Bless you, madam! I'm in a terrible hurry! Twenty patients waiting for me this minute! Let me see the little girl at once."
May-blossom is called in, her blue-veined wrist consigned to the doctor's big feelers; her tongue submitted to a critical inspection; and, after undergoing a prolonged professional thumping and hearkening, she is soundly hugged and kissed, and, with a nod and a smile, dismissed. After this, Doctor Foster and the lady of the mansion are closeted awhile together. The buggy then passes down the drive, and disappears on the long dusty road. Soon after, the south door opens, and a face, pale and sad, but very calm, bends over the child, who has again returned to her out-door seat. Very tenderly is the warm afghan folded about the small, fragile form. The robins no longer sing. The sun, half-obscured, is going down. The burying-ground stands drearily out against the murky sky. The pines wail mournfully, and the river—at ebbing tide—murmurs in sad refrain. Old Harmy, moulding tea-biscuits at her kitchen window, imparts to Mandy Ann—who is shaving the dried beef for tea—her belief that Miss Paulina "hes gone clean crazy, settin' out-doors with that child, an' the dew a fallin' this very minnit, like sixty!" Miss Paulina—recovering her wits—hurries her darling in. The tea-table is already laid in the south keeping-room, beside the wide fireplace, with its ancient crane, and its Scriptural border of watery blue Dutch tiles; and, in the cheerful apple-wood blaze, the two partake together of that now almost obsolete meal—a substantial six o'clock tea. May-blossom is then snugly settled among the cushions of a wide chintz lounge, and the elder lady, in a low seat beside her, and holding lovingly her small wasted hand,—as is her wont,—chats pleasantly with her darling, in the soft, quiet gloaming. At nine, they pass, hand in hand, to Miss Paulina's own chamber, where the child's cot has long been established. May-blossom undressed, kissed, and blessed, creeps drowsily between its warm blankets, and is soon sound asleep. Miss Paulina, in her dressing-gown, broods over the dying fire, far into the night. Alas! have not all her best beloved gone from her? Why might not Heaven have spared to her this last—the one ewe lamb, so tenderly carried in her arms, and warmed in her lonely bosom? Why not; ah, why? She recalls the blessed comfort of two love-lightened years; the daily lessons, when to teach this bright little creature had been a mere pastime; their woodland fern and flower-gatherings, their winter fireside cosiness, all the nameless homely delights of love's dear fellowship—wayside flowers, that, scarce perceived, blossom along life's trodden ways. And now it is all coming to an end! Nothing will be left her but one small, grass-grown grave! As if there were not already graves enough in her world!
May-blossom, though not a sickly child, had never been robust; and when, at midwinter, she had taken the measles, this epidemic of childhood had gone hard with her. She had convalesced but slowly; an ugly cough had set in, and could not be routed; and now there were hectic afternoons, debilitating night-sweats, succeeded by mornings of lassitude; and, to-day, Doctor Foster had summed up his diagnosis in one dreadful word—consumption!
"The child," explained the good doctor—tears blinding his kind old eyes—"has grown up (as it were) in the cellar; delicate nervous organization; too much brain; too little out-door life; and the outcome of it all is simply this—with that cough, and that constitution (God help us!) an angel from heaven couldn't save her!"