Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/544

 . 9, 1861.] “Are you better—are you really better?” was all he could say.

“Yes, indeed, nearly well, and able to eat nice strawberries, and to admire the beautiful roses you sent me. How glorious the lake looks, and the sky, and the whole world! Were the trees ever so green, or the sky ever so blue before? I am longing to get out. Mrs. Wendell, when may I go out?”

“Well, dear, very soon, I expect.”

“The sooner the better,” said Keefe, with animation, gathering hope that she was actually getting well, from her lively tone and brightening looks.

“This warm sun and sweet air will be your best cure. You must pick some strawberries for yourself before they are all gone, and gather the roses that are in bloom now, before they fade.”

“Not so fast, Mr. Dillon,” said Mrs. Wendell, “we mustn’t hurry Miss Lennox. She’s got to be a baby now, and to creep before she can walk, and to walk before she can run, and she mustn’t be tired with too much talk yet awhile either.”

“That’s a hint for me to go: must I take it?” said Keefe.

“Oh, I am not tired yet,” said Helen.

“Nor I don’t want you to be either, dear,” said Mrs. Wendell. “You must do as I bid you, till you’re quite strong, and it’s best not to do too much at first.”

“I should be the most ungrateful creature in the world, if I did not do as you bid me, dear Mrs. Wendell,” said Helen. “What trouble I have given you, what a burden I have been to you, and how good and kind you are. And you, Mr. Dillon—but I won’t speak of it; thanks are but mockery for such benefits as I owe you.”

She stopped, very much agitated. Keefe could not trust himself to answer. If he had spoken at all, his full heart would have said more than he dared give utterance to. But Mrs. Wendell quietly laid her brown and bony hand on Helen’s small white one.

“Hush!” she said, in her calm, steady voice, “no looking back to the past. Let us look forward. God does not like us to look backward. Remember Lot’s wife! An angel of blessing and promise you have been to me, warming and comforting my old heart, and bringing back to me feelings that I thought were dead and buried long ago, so never talk more of being a burden or a trouble to me. As to Mr. Dillon, I guess he doesn’t think the debt’s all on your side; but there’s no time to settle accounts now, for he’s been here long enough already. Do you hear, Mr. Dillon, clear out, will you?”

“I suppose I must,” said Keefe; but he lingered till Helen held out her hand and asked him to come again to-morrow; then he went away happier than he had ever been in his life before. About a week after, towards the close of a lovely day, Helen sat in the stoup, and Keefe leant over a high-backed wooden chair close at her side. Grasshoppers chirped in the warm summer grass, and birds filled the orchard with their songs, while at intervals the hoarse sounds of the bullfrogs and musquito hawk boomed in the deep under-notes of the concert. The cattle came winding along the bank, the boss-cow’s bell tinkling as she led the way with steady tread down the sandy beach to drink at the lake, a faint smell of water-lilies floated up from the water, a light skiff or two moved over its surface, flushing crimson under the sun’s setting glories, and the distant drop of the oars seemed like the soft throbbings of its mighty heart. Health and bloom were now rapidly returning to Helen, and as she sat in the golden sunset, her beauty, her grace, her refinement, and the soul’s light flashing out of her eyes, seemed almost divine to Keefe. She held in her hand a pretty little basket of Indian bark-work, one of Coral’s presents to Keefe. He had filled it this evening with the last wild strawberries of the season, and given them to Helen, and he now stood watching her as she eat them, and praised their sweetness with almost childish delight. Then she admired the tasteful workmanship of the basket, and asked who had made it. Keefe told her, and she listened with interest to the romantic story of the little Indian girl. Alas! for poor Coral! Though he talked of her, he thought only of Helen; and in his eager longing to gain a pleased glance or bright smile from his beautiful listener, the heart his little playmate had laid at his feet, the love that from her distant home still followed him with passionate devotion, was quite forgotten. Then Helen reminded him of his promise to tell her something of his childhood and his parents. It was a sad story. His father had been one of the leaders of the Irish rebellion, and was taken prisoner by a party of yeomanry, who were deliberating about hanging him on the next tree, when a party of United Irishmen came up and rescued him. Full of fierce rage at his escape, the yeomanry returned to his house, and in the dead of night set it on fire. A servant woman, who was much attached to Keefe, was roused from her sleep by the smoke and smell of fire, and rushing into the room in which he lay, dragged him out of bed and out of the house, calling on his mother to follow. But she either did not hear, or was too frightened to make her escape, and perished in the flames, with an infant six months old, who slept by her side.

“When poor Judy had dragged me what she thought a safe distance from the house,” said Keefe, “she stopped, and clasping her hands, and uttering wild cries, she sobbed and wept over me. It seems like a wild dream. The day was just breaking, and through the gray light of the dawn glared the red flames of the burning house. Bewildered, frightened, half-asleep, not understanding what had happened, or where I was, I looked at the blazing pile for a minute; then part of the truth rushed on me, our house was on fire, and my mother in the midst of the flames. My agony was so great that I wonder it did not destroy my reason for ever. Frantic with grief and despair, I tried to break away from Judy, and go back to search for my mother, but she held me fast; she was a strong woman, and I was only seven years of age; and, in spite of my struggles, she forced me away to a house, where she knew she would find safety and protection. What a sight it was for my father to see when he returned