She carried her little basket, going to her friend's house. It was here I saw Ellen. She was not pretty,—with an awkward, ungainly build, and homely face; but there hung about her a great innocence and purity; and she had a certain trustful manner that went home to the roughest and gained their best feeling from them. Her voice, I remember, was low and remarkably sweet. It was curious to see how all, from the servants in the house to blasé young men of society, were touched by some potent charm, and tried in simple, natural ways to aid her. I used to think Ellen was sent into the world to show how near one of the very least of these, His brethren, came to Him. She grew restless,—her disease working with her. "She must go on to Columbus,—to the gate-keeper and his wife. She would live with them as their child."
Meanwhile every effort had been made to communicate with her brother, or to gain a furlough for him. But all failed; the regiment was in the wilds of the Virginia border in active service. No message could reach him. There was no system then in the army.
What could be done for Ellen's comfort in the future her friends did anxiously, and then sent her on to Columbus. She remained with the old people but a week, however. "She was very happy with us," the gate-keeper's wife said. Governor Dennison promised to procure Joe a furlough, and, if possible, a dismissal, as soon as the regiment could be reached by letter. In the mean while she busied herself in making a dress and little useful things for housekeeping, to please her brother when he should come; used to talk all day of her plans,—how they would live near us in some quiet little house. Her trouble seemed all forgotten.
But one day she went out and saw the camp. The sight of the armed men and the uniforms seemed to bring back all she had suffered in Virginia. She was uneasy and silent that night,—said once or twice that she must go on, go on,—got her basket and packed it again. The next morning she went across the field without it, as if to take a walk. When an hour passed we searched for her, and found she had gone into town and taken passage on the Western Railroad.
My story ends here. We never could trace her, though no effort was left untried. I confess that this is one, though almost hopeless. Yet I thought that some chance reader might be able to finish the story for me.
Whether Joe fell in his country's service or yet lives in some "little house" for Ellen, or whether she has found a longer, surer rest, in a house made ready for her long ago by other hands than his, I may never know; but I am sure, that, living or dead, He who is loving and over all has the poor "natural" in His tenderest keeping, and that some day she will go home to Him and to Joe.
WINTER-LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG.
As September drew to an end, with only here and there a suggestion of autumn in chrome-colored leaves on the ends of birch-branches, we were told that any day might suddenly bring forth winter. I remember, that, five years before, in precisely the same season, I had travelled from Upsala to Stockholm in a violent snow-storm, and therefore accepted the announcement as a part of the regular programme of the year. But the days came and went; fashionable equipages forsook their summer ground of the Islands, and crowded the Nevskoi Prospekt; the nights were cold and raw; the sun's lessening declination was visible from day to day, and still Winter delayed to make his appearance.
The Island drive was our favorite resort of an afternoon; and we continued to haunt it long after every summer guest had disappeared, and when the datchas and palaces showed plank and matting in place of balcony and window. In the very heart of St. Petersburg the one full stream of the Nevada splits into three main arms, which afterwards subdivide, each seeking the Gulf of Finland at its own swift, wild will. The nearest of these islands, Vassili Ostrow, is a part of the solid city: on Kammenoi and Aptekarskoi you reach the commencement of gardens and groves; and beyond these the rapid waters mirror only palace, park, and summer theatre. The widening streams continually disclose the horizon-line of the Gulf; and at the farthest point of the drive, where the road turns sharply back again from the freedom of the shore into mixed woods of birch and pine, the shipping at Cronstadt—and sometimes the phantoms of fortresses—detach themselves from the watery haze, and the hill of Pargola, in Finland, rises to break the dreary level of the Ingrian marshes.