Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 19.djvu/395

 VOL. XIX.—APRIL, 1867.—NO. CXIV.

 





CHAPTER X.

first thing Clement Lindsay did, when he was fairly himself again, was to finish his letter to Susan Posey. He took it up where it left off, "with an affection which"and drew a long dash, as above. It was with great effort he wrote the lines which follow, for he had got an ugly blow on the forehead, and his eyes were "in mourning," as the gentlemen of the ring say, with unbecoming levity.

"An adventure! Just as I was writing these last words, I heard the cry of a young person, as it sounded, for help. I ran to the river and jumped in, and had the pleasure of saving a life. I got some bruises which have laid me up for a day or two; but I am getting over them very well now, and you need not worry about me at all. I will write again soon; so pray do not fret yourself, for I have had no hurt that will trouble me for any time."

Of course, poor Susan Posey burst out crying, and cried as if her heart would break. O dear! O dear! what should she do! He was almost killed, she knew he was, or he had broken some of his bones. O dear! O dear! She would go and see him, there!—she must and would. He would die, she knew he would,—and so on.

It was a singular testimony to the evident presence of a human element in Mr. Byles Gridley that the poor girl, in her extreme trouble, should think of him as a counsellor. But the wonderful relenting kind of look on his grave features as he watched the little twins tumbling about his great books, and certain marks of real sympathy he had sometimes shown for her in her lesser woes, encouraged her, and she went straight to his study, letter in hand. She gave a timid knock at the door of that awful sanctuary.

"Come in, Susan Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old master knew her light step and the maidenly touch of her small hand on the panel.

What a sight! There were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible Byles Gridley besieging the fortress VOL. XIX.—NO. 114.25