Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1885-12-18
Father, tst no more, but trust to

III = ALHeI, ee3 slO &lIiuEt, Jul I1uSI3 W
me; now you shall sleep. = 4
i The girl, shaken by hushed sops,
turned from the silvery night, and
glided into the house like a shadow
Ere morning dawned, the soul + OF
Elmar Livingstone had gone, where
human. eye could not follow its flight,
! free of the clogging clay, to it's judg.
ment. fSs5 ~: n, n = : r
! And, as untraceable, it would seem.
as the spirit OF the man who had
wronged her, yet guarded her youth,
Lena Munroe had also gone with the
night, leaving no token behind her,
bidding no farewell. "'"
Six years later the accident occur
red on the midnight train which filled
the hospital OF G--with moaning life,
or crushed and shapeless bodies, in
which was left scarcely strength to
sigh.
The nurses went from pallet to pal
let, holding bandages, aiding to bind
up great gaping wounds, shrinking
from the sight OF severed arms, but
putting personal feeling away before
the great needs that met them.
One nurse, with sweet, blue eyes,
tender and pitiful, gave a low cry at
last, us the surgeon, whose assistant
she was, paused beside a cot on which
Il young man lay unconscious.
"You know him?' hesurgeon asked
her, regarding her blanched face curl
ously.
She bent her head in. silence, sob
bursting from her lips.
Halt all hour later he lay there I'M
der her eyes; cold and still, with strips
LOT linen across his bosom, a broken,
bandaged arm, and court plaster hold
ing together the red edges of cash
that ran perilously near the temple;
and she knelt beside the cot with an
ashen pain in her young face, as she
stroked back the hair from his fore
head.
"After six years. she whispered
softly. "Oh, my loye! after six years,
during which time | have striven to
forget your face, to see it so cold and
white! But you shall be more tender
~ cared for than though you had a
sister near you; and when you are we'll
enough to know me, we part again.
For the crushed and wounded man
WAS Clarence Livingstone, the kneeling
nurse the girl to whom he had refused
his dying father to make offer OF his
hand-Lena Munroc.
Long days and nights followed each
other, and Clarence walked from stu
por to mad deliril1m, in which he told
his patient nurse all OF which she al
ready knew. ind much besides-told
| + l. l.,
to touch, lying in his solicitors hands
for the girl he could not trace; of strug,
gle and trial which lie had gone through
which made her blue eyes dim.
But he said no word OF any woman
whose love was his guerdon, and she
Was glad that was spared her.
Once in a midnight hour, when the
ward was silent and the lights low
about them, he suddenly put forth
his uninjured hand and took one Of
hers; his eyes, brilliant with fever
were fastened on her face
"My father loved you as a daugh-
ter, he said softly, land he told me
,. you loved me: but I did not believe
and I wanted him to leave NE free
Child, why did You fly from me? Did
|
She bent her face, and tears flowed
silently down her cheeks.
H. was dcliruim, she knew: but she,
who had been unable to forget, re-
membering that long hour in the ear
ly ni2 ht too wildly not to again feel
some OF it's pain as she heard him.
1t was weeks later when, after a
long sleep, he Weakened to full con-
seriousness one morning at day-dawn.
The lights were low, the scene spec
trail, as his languid eyes turned from
object to object.
At last they rested on the quiet fig.
ure OF his nurse, asleep in her chair,
and there they fingered.
How sweet and girlish the weary
face was, under the stiff cap!-and sad
! too, as though this life was not such
as her heart yearned for. And the
hands lying idly in her lap were so fail
and white and slender, dainty enough
to be decked with gems, fair enough to
be kissed, but too frail and white for
tearing of linen and lifting of dying
heads, he told himself.
Then a sort OF memory came to hin,
OF those soft fingers on his brow, whe1
it had seemed burning; Of that sweet
face bent over him in his deliri1m
when he had taken it for the face O
: an angel.
He had seen it before, but where:
Perhapssin one of his day dreams
Now hewould never forget, hetold him
self, as: his own eyes closing, he dropped
off to sleep.
, It was midday when hewaked agai,
and found her bending over him, anc
this time he recognized her.
l4ena!' he cried, trying to put out
} his hand.
But he was too weak. 1t fell on tn
counterpart.
you know me?" she said softly
turning paler
"Iknow you, and Iwant to tell you,
he whispered, family, out with warn
glow in his eyes-''you are an heiress
there lsno need for you to do this work
My father
II know it all" she broke in; "ant
that was why left Lynn as I did
Did you think / would beggar you
And your father had been Kind to me
forgave him because he loved me.
will not go back; I will not take ;
farthing Of that money; it is yours.
"Then share it with me- he sal.
J softly. II would not ask you once
because | did not loveyou. I donow
because love has grown in my hear
for you in an hour. Lena, you hav
r nursed me back to lifefrom what mus
: have been very nearly death. Wi
you learn to care enoug h for me t,
share my future?"