I have never been able to explain her selection of one she had so feared and hated as a rival, nor Miss Innis's acceptance. But there she stood, very beautiful, and apparently much interested in what was going on.
After they had returned from their wedding tour, Hiram took possession of his wife's securities. His heart throbbed with excitement and his eyes glistened as he looked them over.
Mr. Bennett had fallen considerably short of the mark. Here were more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!
Just then real estate had fallen to the extreme lowest point after the collapse of the former high speculative prices. Hiram took immediate advantage of this state of things. During the next three months he had sold out his wife's securities, and invested two hundred thousand dollars in vacant lots admirably situated in the upper part of the city. The balance he put into his business.
From that period it did not require a heavy discounting of the future to write Hiram Meeker a MILLIONAIRE.
END OF PART II.
DEAD!
Dead—dead—no matter, the skies are blue,
In their fathomless depths above,
And the glad Earth's robes are as bright in hue,
And worn with as regal a grace, and true,
As they were on the day they were woven new
By the hand of Infinite Love.
Hush! hush!—there is music out in the street,
A popular martial strain;
While the constant patter of countless feet
Keeps time to the strokes of the drum's quick beat,
And the echoing voices that mix and meet
Swell out in a glad refrain.
Lost—lost! Oh, why, when the earth is bright,
And soft is the zephyr's breath,
Oh! why, when the world is so full of light,
Should the wild heart, robed in a cloak of night,
Send up from frozen lips and white
A desolate cry of death?
Dead—dead! How wearily drag the days;
And wearily life runs on!
The skies look cold, through a misty haze,
That curdles the gold of the bright sun's rays,
And the dead leaves cover the banks and braes,
A shroud of the summer gone.
Last year—nay! nay! I do not complain;
There are graves in the heart of all;
So I do not murmur; 'twere weak and vain;
I accept in silence my share of pain,
And the clouds, with their fringes of crimson stain,
That over my young life fall.
There were beautiful days last year, I mind,
When the maple trees turned red,
They flew away like the sportive wind,
But I gathered the joys they left behind,
As I gather the leaves, but to-day I find
That the joys, like the leaves, are dead.
One year! It is past, and I stand alone,
Where I stood with another then;
'Tis well—I had scorned to have held my own
From the bloody strife, though my soul had known
That his life would ebb ere the day was gone,
Amid thousands of nameless men.
Nameless, yet never a one less dear
Than the dearest of all the dead;
I weep—but, Father, my bitter tear
Falleth not down o'er a single bier—
I mourn not the joys of the lost last year,
But the rivers of bright blood shed.