Alice Heath.
She had just concluded, when a servant appeared at the door. “Some ladies and a gentleman, madam,” said he, “have called, and are awaiting you in the drawing-room. They came in a traveling-carriage, and are equipped as if for a long journey.”
“Remove this trunk into the hall,” replied Alice, “and then say to the visiters that I will see them presently. They have already come to bear away my darling,” added she to herself. “I scarce thought that the hour had yet arrived.”
As she spoke, she set about attiring the child with great tenderness, seemingly prolonging the act unconsciously to herself.
“Now the Lord in Heaven keep thee, precious one!” she exclaimed, as, at length, the motherly act terminated; and imprinting on her face a kiss of the most ardent affection, though without giving way to the weakness of a single tear, she bore her from the chamber.
We leave the reader to imagine the last parting moments between that mother and her child. She who had framed the separation as an act of duty, was not one to shrink at the last moment, or betray any faintness of spirit. With a nobly heroic heart she yielded up the young and helpless treasure of her affections to the guardianship of others, and turned to expend her capacities of watchfulness and care upon another object. How well she performed this labor of love, notwithstanding the trial she had just experienced—how far she succeeded in dismissing the recollection of it from her mind sufficiently to enable her to sustain the weight of the responsibilities still devolving upon her—we shall now have an opportunity to determine.
Within another half hour Alice entered the cell of a prison. It was one of those constructed for malefactors of the deepest cast, being partially under the ground, and partaking of the nature of a dungeon. The mighty stones of the walls were green and damp, and together with the cold, clay floor, were sufficient of themselves to suggest speedy illness, and perhaps death, to the occupant. Its only furniture consisted of a single wooden stool, a pallet of straw, and a rude table.
On the pallet alluded to lay a man in the prime of life, his eyes closed in sleep, and the wan hue of death upon his countenance. One pallid hand, delicate and small as a woman’s, rested upon the coarse coverlet, while the other was placed beneath his head, from which streamed forth a profusion of waving hair, now matted and dull, instead of glossy and bright, as it had been in recent days.
When Alice first entered, the sleeper was breathing somewhat disturbedly, but as she approached and bent over him, and raising the hand which lay upon the quilt, pressed it to her lips, his rest suddenly seemed to grow calm, and a faint smile settled upon his mouth.
“Thank God!” whispered she to herself, as she replaced the hand as quietly as she had raised it, “my prayer is heard—the fever has left him, and he is fast recovering.”