Here we might end our history definitely, with the
picture of love and charity rewarded, even on earth—with
Ellie pressed to her kind brother's heart, and very happy.
We might properly arrest, at this point, our story, and
leave all those explanations, involved in every chronicle,
to the imagination of the sympathizing reader.

But, perhaps, it will be better for the history to linger
still for a brief period, in its old haunts—and, therefore,
we shall proceed to say what followed these events—and
how the drama of Mr. Sansoucy's and Ellie's city life
came to an end.

Sansoucy held then in his arms, pressed to his true, loving
breast, the form of his long-lost sister—but alas! this
form was not the Ellie of the past—smiling and happy,
and well. The child had received a terrible shock from the
death of Lucia—she had sunk down on the snow beside her,
when hurrying on with Wide Awake and Sansoucy, she had
come with them to the last footsteps of the organ girl and
to her form, stretched on the earth, and smiling even in

[figure description] Page 562.[end figure description]

death—and then she could not be prevailed upon to stay
at home, when, slowly and silently, the friends of Wide
Awake following him, the body of Lucia was committed
to the earth from which it sprung.

The trying emotions and the bitter cold to which she
had been exposed, prostrated the child, worn out with many
griefs and so much exposure, all through the bitter winter:—
and thus, when, clasping her in his arms, and covering
her face with tears and kisses, Mr. Sansoucy pressed her
to his heart, calling her his dear little, long-lost sister,
Ellie's cheeks blushed crimson—then grew pale, and
sinking back, she had fainted in his arms.

In great alarm, she was laid upon the old bed of Lacklitter,
and a message sent immediately for Doctor Fossyl:—
the child was evidently sick. Sansoucy bent over her,
and watched her feeble breathing with an anguish which
he could not suppress—and it will easily be understood
that this sudden attack of disease, threatening to snatch
from his grasp the treasure just discovered, was enough
to try his utmost equanimity.

Doctor Fossyl came, and made his diagnosis, and shook
his head,

“Cerebral excitement and exposure,” he said, with one
hand on the child's wrist and the other on her forehead.
“The hand is burning, and the brain hot—she must not
stay here in this exposed room.”

Sansoucy gazed for a moment at the doctor with a look
of anguish which made even that stoical personage turn
away: and then he glued his lips to the thin hand of
Ellie and, covering his face, sobbed wearily.

[figure description] Page 563.[end figure description]

A carriage was soon brought—Sansoucy wrapped up
the child and took her in his arms—and soon they reached
Mr. Ashton's, whither Sansoucy proceeded without
ceremony.

If he had doubted the propriety of such a step, the
warm and loving reception of the child soon dissipated
any such uneasiness: in an hour Ellie was lying warmly
covered, in the comfortable apartment of the two children.

We need not pause to say how deep the astonishment
of every one was, at the narrative of Mr. Sansoucy—
showing his connection with Ellie; and by what singular
steps he had come to trace the child's history from her
abandonment by her nurse to the present moment—and
to verify the fact that she was his sister. Little Bel and
Lizzie gave it up completely, not being able to understand
or believe it; and it was only the elder persons of the
family who comprehended at once, and without difficulty,
this new illustration of the secret ways of Providence.

So surrounded by loving faces, and hands ready to
supply her least wants, and bestow soft caresses, the child
lay for weeks—her frame battling with the fever which
fired her blood, and made her at times delirious. With
flushed cheeks, and eyes preternaturally bright, she would
lie and gaze for hours at the sky through the window—and
only when the close kiss upon her hand, and the hot tear,
attracted her feeble attention, did she turn from the blue
sky of the coming spring, and gaze with tender wonder on
the thin, grief-wasted face of him who watched at her
side, and felt every pang of her disease, and wept and
prayed for her.

[figure description] Page 564.[end figure description]

At times the child would wander in her mind, as we
have said, and then it was a touching spectacle—her thin
face illumined by the internal light of sad but happy
thought. At such times her lips would gently part, and
with a happy smile she would murmur:

“Beautiful! Oh, very beautiful!—the angels on their
long white wings, bearing her in their arms. But how
pale you are, Lucia! Oh, how pale—but your face is
happy, very, very happy!”

Then she would wander off to the scenes through which
she had passed, and a sad look would dim her eyes, and
she would murmur again:

“Oh, how cold it is! The snow is falling all the time,
and by night it will be deep enough to cover any one that
falls down on the ground! There is a child going
through the snow—she is shivering!—where is she going
on such a cold, dark day? Oh, it is wrong to let her go;
and she is not covered from the wind and cold!—Oh, it's
not right—why don't rich people give her clothes, and
something to eat?—for her feet move as if she was going
to fall. Oh, help her! help her—the Saviour died for
her, as well as for you!”

Doctor Fossyl would shake his head, and mutter:

“That tells the story of this fever—give me the draught—
she must sleep, and her brain rest.”

The draught would be then given the child, and she
would slowly close her eyes, and forgetting her snow-picture,
smile as she gradually sunk to slumber, murmuring:

“Are you my brother?—are you my real brother?

[figure description] Page 565.[end figure description]

Oh, how dearly I love you—you were so kind and good
to me—so very, very kind, and good, and dear to me—a
poor little child, with nothing but my love—”

“Nothing but a treasure greater than the thrones of
kings!” he would murmur as she slept, covering his face
as he spoke, and sobbing. “Nothing but what the whole
world could not make me yield one particle of!—what
death cannot take from me!—for it will bless and pray
for me in heaven, among the angels, before God!”

And all who stood around the bed would go away, and
leave the strong man alone with the child—bending down
and choking his deep sobs, and trying to pray for help—
for mercy.

At times the child would suffer terribly, and it was in
these paroxysms that her faith and trust seemed to rise up
like a flame of pure fire, and drive away every pang, and
strangle the burning fever. Even the hard Doctor Fossyl,
long used to scenes of pain and disease, and those struggles
of mind against matter, which give such a terrible
interest to his profession—even the harsh doctor would
stand silent, with his thin hand covering his gaunt chin,
gazing upon her, and pondering new thoughts.

One day, when her fever was in the height of one of
these paroxysms, Aurelia, bending over her with eyes
streaming with tears, said, sobbing:

“Do you suffer much, Ellie?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said the child, faintly, “but I try to
bear it—I can bear it—strength is given to me.”

And she murmured some words, which the crouching
head of Doctor Fossyl bent forward to catch.

[figure description] Page 566.[end figure description]

“What was that?” he said.

“A hymn, sir.”

“What?”

The child looked at him for a moment, and then, with
cheeks flushed with the fever, but in a voice low and distinct,
repeated:

“`To see thy face and sing thy praise!”' the sallow
physician murmured, with a strange look in his deep-set
eyes, over which his heavy brows drooped down, nearly
concealing them: and looking on the child in silence, and
with vacant eyes, his own childhood seemed to flow back
on him, and his livid forehead flushed, and from the bottom
of the long-chilled heart an inaudible whisper rose
and fled to heaven, and made the countless multitudes
rejoice—“I believe; help thou my unbelief!”

[figure description] Page 567.[end figure description]

From that moment it seemed that Doctor Fossyl braced
every nerve for the breast-to-breast struggle with his
gigantic enemy. Devouring, with a rapidity which resembled
intuition, every reported case in his vast library, and
with a burning brain, overloaded with all his profound
experience, he would hasten back to Ellie's bed-side, and
there, face to face with death, grapple and fight with him
as if the lives of a thousand emperors, the hopes of
nations, hung upon the frail, wasting thread of that one
child's life. He never slept—day and night he was at the
child's bedside, with her hand in his, his eyes glued to her
face, his body crouching and bent forward, as to catch the
faintest sigh, the most imperceptible indications of her
condition: and his strength seemed never to flag, his
body to need nourishment or rest. Burning, it seemed,
with a personal hatred and fury toward the disease which
struggled with him, he caught it and held it in his iron
grasp, and bent it down beneath him, and so triumphed
over it, and saved her.

The hot fever slowly yielded in the contest—the child's
eyes were no longer preternaturally brilliant—the flush
of disease faded slowly from her cheek—and gradually
as the hours and days passed on, she grew calmer and
stronger: and the physician, rising from the struggle,
looked for a moment on the life he had snatched from the
jaws of death, and went away, and sank down overwhelmed
and powerless himself, before the enemy he had
conquered.

Let us here add, as we take leave of him, that he
recovered—and in a month or two, was again following

[figure description] Page 568.[end figure description]

his profession. But he was not the same man—his
cynical humor had all passed away—and from the height
to which he had ascended, he looked back upon his former
life, and wondered at it, and blessed the day that he had
known the child.

So Ellie slowly recovered—day by day, gaining
strength;—and in the light and warmth of the now
blooming spring, far more in the light and warmth of all
those loving faces and kind, tender hearts, her health and
happiness came back, and resting on the heart of him
whose blood flowed in her veins—who loved her so—she
heard how they were going far away to the bright fields
her infant eyes had looked on, to be happy.

The children, Bel and Lizzie, had almost come to “high
words,” who should attend to Ellie—and the extravagant
affection of these little dames, was warmly returned by the
child, who had been treated by them both with a kindness
and tenderness which made her happy when she thought
of it. On the day she came down for the first time, Bel
and Lizzie had their first serious quarrel, and the subject
of the quarrel was the dress which Ellie should wear.
Bel advanced warmly, and with great eloquence, the
claims of a beautiful pink frock, with flounces, and a
darling love of a basque—while Lizzie was still more
eloquent upon the subject of her best blue mouselain,
with open sleeves, and laced in front—just look how
beautifully!

The quarrel ended on the appearance of Aurelia,
holding in her hand a pretty dress of pearl color, and
followed by her maid, also full handed:—and so Ellie

[figure description] Page 569.[end figure description]

came down and was taken into the open arms of one who
had the best possible right to disappoint both of the
young ladies—Mr. Sansoucy.

Two days afterwards, Aurelia, who had delayed her
return, on account of Ellie's sickness, went back home—
leaving Mr. Sansoucy melancholy for the moment, but
not hopeless.

He was soon to follow her, after having carried Ellie
home—and now, for the first time, he wrote, at length,
the strange and touching story of the child's recovery, to
his mother. He had not written during her sickness,
from a motive easily understood—but now, that she was
well again, he wrote and told them all; and said that he
would come with the child before they could reply to his
letter.

Mr. Sansoucy then made all his arrangements—and
among these arrangements was one for nothing less than
the transportation of Joe Lacklitter and Charley to
Sunnyside—Joe to live upon the farm, doing just what
he chose, and Charley to carry about the green fields
imaginary journals for sale, and hoe in the garden, if it
pleased him, for variety.

Ellie had prayed for this; and the very life of the child
seemed to be involved in having thus beside her the loved
uncle who had loved her so—who was as dear to her, now,
as when she thought she had no other friends or relatives
on earth. With her arms around her brother's neck,
Ellie had besought him for this—and uncle Joe entering,
she had run to him, clasped him in her arms, and hidden
her face, as in old days, on his kind, honest heart.

[figure description] Page 570.[end figure description]

Mr. Sansoucy needed no persuasion. Joe's love and
tenderness for Ellie had endeared him equally to all, and
never, never would any of their family forget the kindness
and protection he had bestowed upon the child—his
solicitude while she was sick and suffering—his joy when
she recovered, and they told him she was well. That
kind friend never would be forgotten; and it did not
require much persuasion to induce Joe to go and live and
help upon the farm.

Mr. Sansoucy, as he came out from the abode of Joe,
observed some workmen carrying a long sign toward
the former business stand of Captain Schminky, and
looking over the door of that establishment, he perceived
that “Schminky, Grocer,” had disappeared—as indeed
had the actual personage, we may as well inform the
reader—to parts unknown. Whether Mrs. Schminky
had represented to him the danger of a sojourn in Virginia
for both of them—or had simply used her will and
influence, we cannot say. But Schminky was among the
things of the past, as far as Richmond was concerned
Mr. Sansoucy walked on, but suddenly found himself
opposite to a gentleman and a lady who were passing—
and in the gentleman he recognized no less a personage
than Monsieur Guillemot.

Monsieur Guillemot cried out in ecstacy, at seeing his
cher ami, Mistare Sansouci; and then with a gentle wave of
his hand, presented—Madame Angelique Susanne Guillemot;
which lady Mr. Sansoucy recognized at once, and
bowed to, and shook hands with in a way which evidently
caused Monsieur Guillemot to feel himself a bankrupt in

[figure description] Page 571.[end figure description]

the particular of thanks, and wholly unable to meet the
run upon him.

So they passed away to the neat dwelling of Madame,
which Monsieur Guillemot besought his friend Sansoucí
to enter and honor—but this being impossible, he passed
on, bowing and smiling pleasantly, to think that Guillemot
was no more bankrupt and a bachelor, but happy
and comfortable, and married.

He called by the post-office, and a letter from Mr.
Incledon was handed to him. It said that he was going
soon to study for the ministry—and meanwhile could not
Ernest pay him a visit—spring had come, and editorial
duties might wait for a season—there were young ladies
lastly in the house to entertain him, if he could not be
amused by one, who, praying God to bless him, was his
sincere and faithful Ralph.

Sansoucy smiled, and said:

“Yes, yes! the spring has come, and editorial duties
will probably wait long—and as for the young ladies,
faith! they amuse and interest me no longer; I'm not in
the market!”

And going to his office, he sat down and wrote Ralph
Incledon all about everything: and then his pathetic
farewell to the readers of the “Mammoth,” which he
penned with tears—of laughter; and then having done
all this, he put on his hat, and with a glad smile sought
Mr. Ashton's house and Ellie.

p506-583

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