Anxiously passed another day. Mr. Townsend was at the post-office, impatiently awaiting the opening of the mail, long before it could be distributed; but there was no letter. The southern mail had been delayed beyond Richmond. Two letters came to hand on the next day. That of the last date was torn open and read, with eyes that took in sentences rather than words. It ran thus:
“I wrote you yesterday, stating that there were some favorable symptoms; that the fever had yielded to the efforts of Mr. Townsend’s physicians. To-day he lies in a very low state. Life seems scarcely to beat in his pulses. But still there is life, and the disease has abated; we may, therefore, confidently hope that the vital spark will slowly rekindle. The attack was most malignant, and bore him down with great rapidity. To-morrow I hope to be able to say that every thing is progressing toward recovery.”
“God grant that the issue may be favorable!” murmured the father, as he crushed the letter in his hand, and hurried away toward the anxious ones at home.
It was the first prayer that had ever ascended from the heart of the merchant—the first deeply-felt acknowledgment of his own powerlessness, and dependence upon a Supreme Being.
To the mother and sister this last intelligence brought a ray of hope, feeble though it was, and scarcely to be called light.
Three days more went by, and in all that time—an age of suspense—there came no word of the sick son and brother.
“Has there been a failure of the southern mail?” asked Mr. Townsend every day. The answer “No,” fell each time upon his feelings like a stroke from a hammer; for to his mind it indicated the worst. If there had been any improvement, the clerk would most certainly have written.
At last another letter came. It was brought to the house of Mr. Townsend by his clerk immediately on the arrival and distribution of the mail. The merchant had not been out that day. His distress of mind had become so great that he could attend to no business. This letter he received as he sat in the midst of his family. He did not break the seal until the servant who handed it in had retired. A short time before the letter came, he was walking about the room in an agitated manner, listening for the ringing of the street bell, as it was full time for his clerk to be there from the post-office, and had just seated himself with a deep sigh. Now he was calm, and broke the seal with strange deliberation.
“I have waited three days in the hope of having favorable news to send you; but, alas! I have waited in vain. Your son expired—”
A heavy groan broke from the lips of the unhappy father as the letter fell from his nerveless hand; and at the same time a wild cry of anguish burst from the mother’s heart. Eunice alone was externally calm, though she felt the bereavement as deeply, perhaps, as any; but it was not felt in the same way. It did not strike down, as in the father’s case, the selfish hopes of a worldly mind.