Litchfield enquirer., 1873-01-23

l lay S0othed by the W0ndef1u1 mufmuf or | the sea, and as she lay she thought of all her life past, and of him who had seemed to be her source of joy and comfort; and after long time she rose, saying that she | would go back to the house and see Raoul, | and there should be peace between them. So she went back, and Madame Cagot not being in the way, she went up into, l the room where Raoul still 74y sl6apihg. She took chair, and sat looking at his poor thin face, until her whole nature was SO filled with pity that she forgot all else | but sad grief that they must let him go, for there was no mistaking that the seal of death was upon his face. She had sat some time before the door was pushed & little open, and a pale-faced child, looking nine or ten years old, put in it's little head,
 and then stood staring silently at Man. nette, who, feeling sure who she was,
 beckoned her forward.
 'I am your papa's sister," she whis- pered. ''Thou must love me, my child"
 And the little one held up it's face, and
 let Nannette fold her in her arms.
 "Babette is down stairs, said the child.
 ''She cannot walk upstairs, and she will
 cry without me"
 So Nannette went to the top of the staircase, and Madame Cagot gave into her arms the little one, Babette, who soon went to sleep, while Marie, sitting at Man. nette's feet, amused herself quietly, as children accustomed to sickness and sui
 fering can. Therefore, it happened that
 when Roul Vanier opened his eyes, they
 rested upon Nannette, with his two chil- dren nestled close beside her. He knew her in moment-indeed, he called her l little changed. But he could not do much else than hold her hand in his and | call down blessings on her head. Twas Nannettess tears that flowed. Raoul was | too weak to show outward emotion. He l listened to her tale of her fathers loss 1 and illness, and how both he and all his friends had thought he must be dead. He never spoke while she told her story, as simply as she could, for fear of agitat- ing him, only every now and then from between his closed eyes would roll down big tears. During the day he said no word of his marriage, his life, or why he had never written. Only, as Nannette at tended to his wants, he would call her an angel, and press his poor lips on her hand, though by that time, madame, with the tender love a mother has to oW ards her helpless babe, Nannette longed to take him in her arms, and fold him to her heart.
 Towards evening he seemed to grow stronger, and they two being alone, he called her to him, and told her that he we'll knew his days, perhaps his hours, were numbered, as the doctor had told him that he could not live through anoth- CT outburst of bleeding for it was of a consumption he was dying), and he want ed to tell her of things that were upon his conscience. Nannette begged he would let her go far priest.
 "Yes, he said, "that too, my good an gel, thou shalt do; but first must speak to thee, Nannette;" and then, madame, he told a piteous tale; how, in a foreign land away from all he loved, to drown the grief which, after he had put the sea be- tween himself and us, seemed to take pos- session of him, he fell into bad ways Among companions more wicked than he in his innocent heart dreamed of, he for got the good lessons he had been taught in the home he had left behind. Happily, he never lost his sense of guilt, only the devil prevailed enough to overwhelm him 80 completely with shame, that he despair ed of forgiveness, and plunged more reck- lessly into sin. The poor woman he af- forwards arried was but little better than the others by whom he was sur rounded; and, though both he and she were making wages enough to have been looked upon at Wire IS 8 fortune, they were often in VI ant of food and clothes. He received'the letters which e sent to him by the AngetiQa4e, and the love they contained seemed, he said, to poison hIs Whole future. Even in his widest mirth, those words sounded in his ears like fu- neral bell, and their memory was often his first a" a"akening to consciousness.
 At last his health gave way, and then life seemed insupportable, though when a voice within would tell him his life was drawing to close, he shrank away terri fled, and tried hard to stife the warning. How he longed for home and quiet he could never say, and more than all else, the desire possessed him to see once mora his father and Nannette; the life he had lived since he left them seemed hideous dream, and his one hope now was, that he might live until he could get back. His wife opposed him at first, but when he told her that his father vas rich, and would keep her and the children without work, she consented. Perhaps the poor woman had presentiment that she should never reach the foreign land; for though her parents had been French settlers, she knew nothing of their country. Of her, however, Raoul spoke but little, ,and there W as so much to say, and so little strength to tell it with, that Nannette did not learn much, except that he had never felt for any other woman the same love he had given to her whom he had forsaken.
 "Nannette," he said, "miserable as 1 had ever been, twas happiness compared to the agony that took possession of me, w hen first awoke to N hat l might have been, and the full knowledge of what l Was. The only prayer for years dared utter, as to beg happiness for you"
 ''And God heard that prayer, Raoul, ''I had your father to love, and you to re- member An! think not, my friend, that my life has been ore of sorrow" and, hoping to comfort him, she told him how good Jeanne FerouelIe was to her, and that her place at the hotel now Was as a daughter, not servant; and in her poor way, madame, she tried to make him see that God, who ordereth all things well, had ordered that in life these tSo should be apart, but in death they should be again united. Then, worn by this talk, the fellow dropped into kind of sleep, from which every now and then he would arouse himself enough to say, '"Thou for givest me, Nannette?" and the peaceful smile her ans CT ould bring, made his look as young as when he vas first her own. An! madame, it was hard to give him up, and weak and sickly as he was, willingly would Nannette heve kept him.
 About five o'clock the priest he came, and before he left, he spoke kindly to Nsnnette, and told her that he would see if anything could be done for the children, whose welfare alone now troubled the sick man; but Nannette eased him of that burden; and when she vent to Raoul again, she told him that he must give his children to her, and she would be a mother to them; and after that great peace seemed to come to him, and he began to hope that God would yet grant him the pardon that for three long years he had sought with sorrow and des- pair. Twas Nannette's prayer had gained him this, he said; had 1t not been for her, this hard heart had never been touched. TN A. .N1