Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/529

Rh his feverish lips with cool drinks, or smoothing his pillow, a fact utterly unreal and preposterous seen against the pattern of the wall-paper, or sitting on the familiar chair by his bedside—it was always there. And when, one day, the figure stayed longer, and the interval of complete consciousness seemed more protracted, Mr. Hamlin, with one mighty effort, moved his lips, and said feebly:

"Donna Dolores!"

The figure started, leaned its beautiful face, blushing a celestial, rosy red, above his own, put its finger to its perfect lips, and said in plain English:

"Hush! I am Gabriel Conroy's sister!"

CHAPTER LIII. IN WHICH MR. HAMLIN PASSES.

his lips sealed by the positive mandate of the lovely specter, Mr. Hamlin resigned himself again to weakness and sleep. When he awoke, Olly was sitting by his bedside; the dusty figure of Pete, spectacled, and reading a good book, was dimly outlined against the window, but that was all. The vision—if vision it was—had fled.

"Olly," said Mr. Hamlin, faintly.

"Yes!" said Olly, opening her blue eyes in expectant sympathy.

"How long—have I been dr—I mean how long has this—spell lasted?"

"Three days," said Olly.

"The——you say!" (A humane and possibly weak consideration for Mr. Hamlin, in his new weakness and suffering, restricts me to a mere outline of his extravagance of speech.) "But you're better now," supplemented Olly.

Mr. Hamlin began to wonder faintly if his painful experience of the last twenty- four hours were a part of his convalescence. He was silent for a few moments, and then suddenly turned his face toward Olly.

"Didn't you say something about—about—your sister the other day?"

"Yes,—she's got back," said Olly, curtly.

"Here ?"

"Here."

"Well?" said Mr. Hamlin, a little impatiently.

"Well," returned Olly, with a slight toss of her curls. "She's got back, and I reckon it's about time she did."

Strange to say, Olly's evident lack of appreciation of her sister seemed to please Mr. Hamlin,—possibly because it agreed with his own idea of Grace's superiority, and his inability to recognize or accept her as the sister of Gabriel.

"Where has she been all this while?" asked Jack, rolling his large hollow eyes over Olly.

"Goodness knows! Says she's bin livin' in some fammerly down in the South—Spanish, I reckon—thet's where she gits those airs and graces."

"Has she ever been here,—in this room?" asked Mr. Hamlin.

"Of course she has," said Olly. "When I left you to go with Gabe to see his wife at Wingdam, she volunteered to take my place. Thet woz while you woz flighty, Mr. Hamlin. But I reckon she admired to stay here on account of seein' her bo!"

"Her what?" asked Mr. Hamlin, feeling the blood fast rushing to his colorless face.

"Her bo," repeated Olly; "thet thar Ashley or Poinsett—or whatever he calls hisself now!"

Mr. Hamlin here looked so singularly, and his hand tightened so strongly around Olly's, that she hurriedly repeated to him the story of Grace's early wanderings, and her absorbing passion for their former associate, Arthur Poinsett. The statement was, in Olly's present state of mind, not favorable to Grace.

"And she just came up yer, only to see Arthur agin. Thet's all. And she nearly swearin' her brother's life away—and pretendin' it was only done to save the fammerly's name. Jest az if it hed been any more comfortable fur Gabriel to have been hung in his own name. And then goin' and accusin' thet innocent ole lamb, Gabe, of conspiring with July to take her name away. Purty goin's on, I reckon! And thet man Poinsett, by her own showin', never lettin' on to see her nor us,—nor anybody. And she sassin' me for givin' my opinion of him and excusin' him by sayin' she didn't want him to know whar she was. And she refusin' to see July at all—and pore July lyin' thar at Wingdam, sick with a new baby. Don't talk to me about her!"

"But your sister didn't run away with—with—this chap. She went away to bring you help," interrupted Jack, hastily dragging Olly back to earlier history.

"Did she? Couldn't she trust her bo to go and get help and then come back fur her?—reckonin' he cared for her at all. No, she waz thet crazy after him she couldn't