“It is true child!” she said in reply to that look; “he will soon be gone, and may God comfort the fatherless!”
A wild burst of sorrow escaped the poor girl at this confirmation of her worst fears, and she laid her cheek on that of the dying, bathing it with her tears and kisses. That cry—the touch of those fond lips, arrested the departing spirit in its flight. The closing eyes opened and fastened themselves with a look of inexpressible tenderness on the face of his child—then they were raised upward with a radiant smile that spoke of peace and blessedness—but immediately a mysterious shadow passed over the countenance, and as it settled down upon it the spirit quitted its frail tenement, but left its heavenly impress in the smile which lingered long upon the pallid lips.
The dull, gray morning dawned slowly on that chamber of death shedding a cold light upon the forlorn rose-tree, and stealing, as with a muffled step, to the bed on which reposed, beside her dead father, the youthful form of the gentle, heart-broken daughter. Long after his departure she had seemed to sleep calmly on his bosom, but when they raised her up, to remove her from him, the seal of death was on her angel features—this last sorrow had been too mighty for her poor, tried heart, and in the bitter struggle its chords snapped, and its music was forever hushed on earth, to make glad melody in heaven.
Captain Clairville saw the last duties paid to the remains of the departed father and daughter, whose sad history had awakened his deepest interest, and whose prospects, had their lives been spared, it was his hope and purpose to brighten. The precious rose-tree he consigned to the charge of Ferris, who shortly afterward married an honest tradesman, exacting from her a promise to shed its flowers annually on the graves of those who so fondly cherished it—a promise which she faithfully fulfilled.
Disappointed in his estimate of Alicia’s character, Clairville never, after the affair of the roses, sought a renewal of his intercourse with her, and the few times they met in society, it was as strangers. As soon as the spring opened he obtained leave of absence and returned to England, and when he again rejoined his regiment, he was the husband of a lady, who, Ferris declared, was the very image of poor Rosalie La Motte.
Mortified and chagrined by his desertion, Alicia affected a gayety which she did not feel, and pursued her vain career of dissipation and vanity till the bloom of youth faded from her cheek, when she gave her hand to a man double her own age, who was supposed to be immensely rich. But he shortly transported her to an isolated seignory, which was his only possession, where, without any affection for her husband or any resources within herself, she lived a wretched and discontented being, and died unregretted and unwept.
THE NEW GARDEN.
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