the will of another. It was a new but a dear joy, to be lifted up and
carried back into the happy world, which was now all aglow with the light
of love; to be lifted and carried by the one she loved more than her own
life.
“Sweetheart,” she said to Philip, “I would not have cared to come back
but for thy love.”
“Not for thy profession?”
“Oh, thee may be glad enough of that some day, when thy coal bed is dug
out and thee and father are in the air again.”
When Ruth was able to ride she was taken into the country, for the pure
air was necessary to her speedy recovery. The family went with her.
Philip could not be spared from her side, and Mr. Bolton had gone up to
Ilium to look into that wonderful coal mine and to make arrangements for
developing it, and bringing its wealth to market. Philip had insisted on
re-conveying the Ilium property to Mr. Bolton, retaining only the share
originally contemplated for himself, and Mr. Bolton, therefore, once
more found himself engaged in business and a person of some consequence
in Third street. The mine turned out even better than was at first
hoped, and would, if judiciously managed, be a fortune to them all.
This also seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Bigler, who heard of it as soon
as anybody, and, with the impudence of his class called upon Mr. Bolton
for a little aid in a patent car-wheel he had bought an interest in.
That rascal, Small, he said, had swindled him out of all he had.
Mr. Bolton told him he was very sorry, and recommended him to sue Small.
Mr. Small also came with a similar story about Mr. Bigler; and Mr.
Bolton had the grace to give him like advice. And he added, “If you and
Bigler will procure the indictment of each other, you may have the
satisfaction of putting each other in the penitentiary for the forgery of
my acceptances.”
Bigler and Small did not quarrel however. They both attacked Mr. Bolton
behind his back as a swindler, and circulated the story that he had made
a fortune by failing.
In the pure air of the highlands, amid the golden glories of ripening
September, Ruth rapidly came back to health. How beautiful the world is
to an invalid, whose senses are all clarified, who has been so near the
world of spirits that she is sensitive to the finest influences, and
whose frame responds with a thrill to the subtlest ministrations of
soothing nature. Mere life is a luxury, and the color of the grass, of
the flowers, of the sky, the wind in the trees, the outlines of the
horizon, the forms of clouds, all give a pleasure as exquisite as the
sweetest music to the ear famishing for it. The world was all new and
fresh to Ruth, as if it had just been created for her, and love filled
it, till her heart was overflowing with happiness.
It was golden September also at Fallkill. And Alice sat by the open
window in her room at home, looking out upon the meadows where the
laborers were cutting the second crop of clover. The fragrance of it
floated to her nostrils. Perhaps she did not mind it. She was thinking.
She had just been writing to Ruth, and on the table before her was a
yellow piece of paper with a faded four-leaved clover pinned on it–only
a memory now. In her letter to Ruth she had poured out her heartiest
blessings upon them both, with her dear love forever and forever.
“Thank God,” she said, “they will never know”
They never would know. And the world never knows how many women there
are like Alice, whose sweet but lonely lives of self-sacrifice, gentle,
faithful, loving souls, bless it continually.
“She is a dear girl,” said Philip, when Ruth showed him the letter.
“Yes, Phil, and we can spare a great deal of love for her, our own lives
are so full.”