Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures | Page 5

the few hours that had elapsed since his interview
with Miss Linmore. In those few hours, Memory had turned over many
leaves of the Book of his Life. He would fain have averted his eyes
from the pages, but he could not. The record was before him, and he
had read it. And, as he read, the eyes of Edith looked into his own; at
first they were loving and tender, as of old; and then. they were full of
tears. Her hand lay, now, confidingly in his; and now it was slowly
withdrawn. She sat by his side, and leaned upon him--his lips were
upon her lips; his cheek touching her cheek; their breaths were
mingling. Another moment and he had turned from her coldly, and she
was drooping towards the earth like a tender vine bereft of the support
to which it had held by its clinging tendrils. Ah! If he could only have
shut out these images! If he could have erased the record so that
Memory could not read it! How eagerly would he have drunk of Lethe's
waters, could he have found the fabled stream!
More than all this. The rebuke of Miss Linmore almost maddened him.
In turning from Edith, he had let his heart go out towards the other with
a passionate devotion. Pride in her beauty and brilliant
accomplishments had filled his regard with a selfishness that could ill
bear the shock of a sudden repulse. Sleepless was the night that
followed; and when the morning, long looked for, broke at last, it
brought no light for his darkened spirit. Yet he had grown calmer, and a
gentle feeling pervaded his bosom. Thrown off by Miss Linmore, his
thoughts now turned by a natural impulse, as the needle, long held by
opposing attraction, turns to its polar point, again towards Edith Walter.
As he thought of her longer and longer, tenderer emotions began to
tremble in his heart. The beauty of her character was again seen; and
his better nature bowed before it once more in a genuine worship.
"How have I been infatuated! What syren spell has been on me!" Such
were the words that fell from his lips, marking the change in his
feelings.
Days went by, and still the change went on, until the old affection had

come back; the old tender, true affection. But, he had turned from its
object--basely turned away. A more glaring light had dazzled his eyes
so that he could see, for a time, no beauty, no attraction, in his first love.
Could he turn to her again? Would she receive him? Would she let him
dip healing leaves in the waters he had dashed with bitterness? His
heart trembled as he asked these questions, for there was no confident
answer.
At last Edwin Florence resolved that he would see Edith once more,
and seek to repair the wrong done both to her and to himself. It was
three months after his rejection by Miss Linmore when he came to this
resolution. And then, some weeks elapsed before he could force
himself to act upon it. In all that time he had not met the young girl, nor
had he once heard of her. To the house of her aunt, where she resided,
Florence took his way one evening in early autumn, his heart disturbed
by many conflicting emotions. His love for Edith had come back in full
force; and his spirit was longing for the old communion.
"Can I see Miss Walter!" he asked, on arriving at her place of
residence.
"Walk in," returned the servant who had answered his summons.
Florence entered the little parlor where he had spent so many
never-to-be-forgotten hours with Edith--hours unspeakably happy in
passing, but, in remembrance, burdened with pain--and looking around
on each familiar object with strange emotions. Soon a light step was
heard descending the stairs, and moving along the passage. The door
opened, and Edith--no, her aunt--entered. The young man had risen in
the breathlessness of expectation.
"Mr. Florence," said the aunt, coldly. He extended his hand; but she did
not take it.
"How is Edith?" was half stammered.
"She is sinking rapidly," replied the aunt.

Edwin staggered back into a chair.
"Is she ill?" he inquired, with a quivering lip.
"Ill! She is dying!" There was something of indignation in the way this
was said.
"Dying!" The young man clasped his hands together with a gesture of
despair.
"How long has she been sick?" he next ventured to ask.
"For months she has been dying daily," said the aunt. There was a
meaning in her tones that the young man fully comprehended. He had
not dreamed of this.
"Can I see her?"
The aunt shook her head, as she answered,
"Let her spirit depart in