Year: 1870

Friends and relatives looked on an(


Wondered how long this kind o


thing was going to last. The ad


vice which they had profered hat


been imperatively rejected by botf
the alienated parties. The oppor
tunities for reconcilement which
their friends had sought had scorn
fully been Stunned. And yet eact
of these unhappy beings, ruthlessly
running the brightest years of theil
married life, loved the other, besides
being secretly bound together by 6
single tie.


This was in the form of child
scarcely twelve years old, Revel Alb.
benseth. Since he was only two
years of age, it had been doubtful
whether he would live beyond baby
hood; and during the hours when
father and mother knelt at his bed
side, these two estranged hearts felt
themselves silently appealed to, by
the logic of the waning life, which
each of them had contributed to-
ward, in the little baby face lieng
dropping before them. But the
hours had long since passed away,
and, contrary to the expectation of
all, the child had risen from what
seemed to be a bed of death, and
grown to be twelve years of age, tall
Of stature, and of uncommon beau
ty. Early in his young life he had
begun to notice the dumbness of
the one parent in the presence of
the other. By unconscious degrees
he grew into the knowledge that he
must say no word and do no act
which would have a tendency to
make his parents cease to ignore
one another's presence. Without
comprehending the estrangement,
he felt, with precocious intuition,
that it must continue.


Meanwhile, during the years
which threw shadow into all the
remainder of their lives, Edgar and
Eta watched their child grow with
trembling delight, and separately
caressed him with alienated hands
that gave no token of wish ever to
seek one another more.


One August evening, when the
first keen earnest Of approaching
Fall had begun to whisk the prema-
turely withered leaves away, the
house in which the Abbenseths
lived was preternaturally quiet. In
one of the upper bedrooms was
group of three. For years past
wretched husband and wretched
wife had occupied separate suits of
apartments, and not since the eve
ming when Eta had signified her
intention to go to Mrs. Leroy's had
they been brought into such close
contact.


This is how it happened. Death,
which wrongs so many rights and
rights so many wrongs in this world
was drawing them together now.


On the bed, in the early mourn
full twilight of the gloomed cham
Der, lay little Revel, his night-gown
undone at the throat, his lips parted
and slightly gasping, his eyes, as he
gazed alternately into the face of his
father and mother, glittering with a
light that was soon to open upon
another world. During the slow
wasting away of this darling boy,
no one who saw the Abbenseths
guessed the amount of anguish they
silently endured.


With sensibility exquisite in one
so young, Revel had long refrained
from speaking to one about the
other. But now, as the subtler SEN
sibility and the bolder wisdom
which death suggests to the dying
came to this child of reconciliation,
and, as his last breaths were being
drawn, he looked in one quick mo-
ment, and with grand and beautiful
meaning, into the opposed faces
above him, and with his last feeble
strength drew together, and clasped
each in each, the hands that had not
met in nearly twelve long years.


In the quiet moments that follow
ed; before the little hands which
had begun their work OF. reconcilia-
tion had grown cold, who shall say
what memories came thronging
around the hearts of the bereft,
bidding them live joyfully with one
another the remnant of life remain
ing, calling to them, over the rift
and ruin of long years to fill them
selves with the peace and holiness
of love!


For some moments both remained
thus: Eta with her face buried in
her dead boys breast, Edgar with
his hand remaining in the soft clasp
in which it had been placed, and his
working features bent over her with
exceeding mournfulness.


At length he spoke. 1t was only