American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-11-09

| lust come into the room. and was lookin.
ut her with singular interested expires
sion.
"Tabitha,- she said at last. 18th,
man down stairs ?-is he to go? lie say!
| if there is anything more he can do Ia,
| will do it. He went tor the DOCTOR
Tabitha had quite forgotten him before
| and now the remembrance of his presence
touched her heart afresh. Us ..
! NO. she said I'm 90 and speak to
him L should like to thank him. We lit
| tie thought last night, when she said he
do her such a service as that
"She left the bedside and the still cham
| Der. and made her way slowly down stairs
| to the great kitchen. 1t WIS quite dark
yet, but the man had built a fire in the
huge deep fireplace. and so the room was
flooded with ruddy, dancing light, and
when she stepped across the threshold
this light revealed to her the wandcrer.
his heavy head lying across his folded
arms upon the round oak table. One hes
liant moment and she stood in the shad-
Ow. and then he stirred, with low sound
that was half hushed, strugglcd-against
sob of anguish.
No need to falter then, no need to wait
no need to stand in the darkness longer
with that wildly fluttering heart. Other
women might have dOubted-Other wo-
men with happier Ives, women to whom
Gods best gifts had been most freely Civ
en-but not this one not this little wo-
man, through whose dark sky the single
rift of heavens sunshine mad only strug-
gled to die out in drearier darkness.
Could she have loved and trusted and wait
ed through these eight years, and then
have forgotten-forgotten after the weary
days, forgotten after the lonely nights.
forgotten after the simple. faithful pray
ers to which, for many days. there had
been given no answer? Nay. not she: she
would have known if it had been hur-
dred years, and she had lived them all
alone.
'sLem Husband! she called to him;
and though she trembied from head to
foot. her tone rang out in the still old
place like cry of rejoicing.
And the man. raising his head, looked
round and saw her. But he did not go to
her: how could he. after all these years
soul? He got up slowly from his chair.
shaking from head to foot also, but in a
passion of remorse and despair. Man.
like, he could not grasp what this sad lit
tie woynan'S love had been, was. and
would be foreyec. He opened his dry
lips to speak. but no sound came from
them; he had no words to utter. He
stood before her for a moment as he
might have stood before a Judge. and then
his lips began to tremble too, and he flung
himself down upon the chair once more.
his folded arms upon the Oaken table, his
face upon them sObbing aloud.
But she went to him across the kitchen
with her arms stretched out. and folded
his strong, shaken body i'm her weak.
woman's clasp, and clung to him-not for
getting, because she had never remem-
bered; not forgiving, because the sublime
simplicity of her faith had recognized no
wrong to forgive-pOuring out the long
pent-up love of her trustful soul upon his
breast, thanking God and welcoming the
wanderer home.
of seeing her once more lie had dared form
the desperate plan of coming to the house
that night in a sort of disguise. she took
him up to the close, darkenci chamber.
and they stood together by the bedside,
looking down in awed silence at the dead
woman's face ; and at last, when they had
gazed long and sadly. hand in hand, the
little woman broke the silence in her tim
id, hushed voice.
''Those are fathers letters" she said.
''And she was reading them when she
died so l put them there. II don't
quite understand how TO say it, Lem, but
I've been thinking that though perhaps
God gives different feelings to different
He gives us all one thing alike-the breath
of life, His breath. you know; and it
seems to me somehow, Lem, as if the
breath of God must give IA kind of soft
ness sometimes to the very hardest. And
and maybe, with Him being so high
above us and seeing things so clear. He
takes many things into account that we
know nothing about, and never think off,
-Ha7per's Magazine for Norenaber-