The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But 'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an' Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!"
Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place of rest.
Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles, he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost in his heart.
She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor. Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing. But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance in his hard, humdrum life.
Chauncey Hickox.
Under False Colors.
Chapter I.
Hoisting The Flag.
A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually transferred to the deck of the ship.
Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two young girls: