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“I was younger than you, Gertrude,” said she, “when my trial
came, and hardly the same person in any respect that I have been
since you first knew me. You are aware, perhaps, that my mother
died when I was too young to retain any recollection of her; but
my father soon married again, and in this step-parent, whom I
remember with as much tenderness as if she had been my own
mother, I found a love and care which fully compensated for my
loss. I can recall her now as she looked towards the latter part
of her life,—a tall, delicate, feeble woman, with a very sweet,
but rather sad face. She was a widow when my father married
her, and had one son, who became at once my sole companion,
the partner of all my youthful pleasures. You told me, many
years ago, that I could not imagine how much you loved Willie,
and I was then on the point of confiding to you a part of my
early history, and convincing you that my own experience might
well have taught me how to understand such a love; but I
checked myself, for you were too young then to be burdened with
the knowledge of so sad a story as mine, and I kept silent. How
dear my young playmate became to me, no words can express.
The office which each filled, the influence which each of us exerted
upon the other, was such as to create mutual dependence; for,

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though his was the leading spirit, the strong and determined will,
and I was ever submissive to a rule which to my easily-influenced
nature was never irksome, there was one respect in which my bold
young protector and ruler ever looked to me for aid and support.
It was to act as mediator between him and my father; for, while
the boy was almost an idol to his mother, he was ever treated
with coldness and distrust by my father, who never understood
or appreciated his many noble qualities, but seemed always to
regard him with an eye of suspicion and dislike. To my supplicating
looks and entreating words, however, he ever lent a willing
ear, and all my eloquence was sure to be at the service of my
companion when he had a favor to obtain or an excuse to plead.

“That my father's sternness towards her son was a great cause
of unhappiness to our mother, I can have no doubt; for I well
remember the anxiety with which she strove to conceal his faults
and misdemeanors, and the frequent occasions on which she herself
instructed me how to propitiate the parent, who, for my sake,
would often forgive the boy, whose bold, adventurous, independent
disposition, was continually bringing him into collision with one
of whose severity, when displeased, you have yourself had some
opportunity to judge. My step-mother had been extremely poor
in her widowhood, and her child, having inherited nothing which
he could call his own, was wholly dependent upon my father's
bounty. This was a stinging cause of mortification and trial to
the pride of which even as a boy he had an unusual share; and
often have I seen him chafed and irritated at the reception of
favors which he well understood were far from being awarded by
a paternal hand; my father, in the mean time, who did not understand
this feeling, mentally accusing him of gross ingratitude.

“As long as our mother was spared to us we lived in comparative
harmony; but at last, when I was just sixteen years
old, she was stricken with sudden illness, and died. Well do I
remember, the last night of her life, her calling me to the bed-side,
and saying, in a solemn voice, `Emily, my dying prayer is
that you will be a guardian-angel to my boy!' God forgive
me,” ejaculated the now tearful blind girl, “if I have been faithless
to the trust!

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“He of whom I am telling you (for Emily carefully forbore
to mention his name) was then about eighteen. He had lately
become a clerk in my father's counting-room, much against his
will, for he earnestly desired a collegiate education; but my
father was determined, and, at his mother's and my persuasion,
he was induced to submit. My step-mother's death knit the tie
between her son and myself more closely than ever. He still
continued an inmate of our house, and we passed all the time
that he could be spared from the office in the enjoyment of each
other's society; for my father was much from home, and, when
there, usually shut himself up in his library, leaving us to entertain
each other. I was then a school-girl, fond of books, and an
excellent student. How often, when you have spoken of the assistance
Willie was to you in your studies, have I been reminded
of the time when I, too, received similar encouragement and aid
from my own youthful companion and friend, who was ever ready
to exert hand and brain in my behalf! We were not invariably
happy, however. Often did my father's face wear that stern
expression which I most dreaded to see; while the excited,
disturbed and occasionally angry countenance of his step-son,
denoted plainly that some storm had occurred, probably at the
counting-room, of which I had no knowledge, except from its
after effects. My office of mediator, too, was suspended, from the
fact that the difficulties which arose were usually concerning some
real or supposed neglect or mismanagement of business matters
on the part of the young and inexperienced clerk; a species of
faults with which my father, a most thorough merchant and
exact accountant, had very little patience, and to which the
careless and unbusiness-like delinquent was exceedingly prone.
Matters went on thus for about six months, when it suddenly
became evident that my father had either been powerfully influenced
by insinuations from some foreign quarter, or had himself
suddenly conceived a new and alarming idea. He is, as you are
aware, a plain man, honest and straight-forward in his purposes,
whatever they may be; and, even if it occurred to him to man
œuvre, incapable of carrying out successfully, or with tact, any
species of artifice. Our eyes could not, therefore, long be closed

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to the fact that he was resolved to put an immediate check
upon the freedom of intercourse which had hitherto subsisted
between the two youthful inmates of his house; to forward which
purpose he immediately introduced into the family, in the position
of housekeeper, Mrs. Ellis, who has continued with us ever
since. The almost constant presence of this stranger, together
with the sudden interference of my father with such of our longestablished
customs as favored his step-son's familiar intimacy
with me, sufficiently proved his intention to uproot and destroy,
if possible, the closeness of our friendship. Nor was it surprising,
considering the circumstance that I had already reached the
period of womanhood, and the attachment between us could no
longer be considered a childish one, while any other might be
expected to draw forth my father's disapproval, since his wife's
idolized son was as far as ever from being a favorite with him.

“My distress at these proceedings was only equalled by the
indignation of my companion in suffering, whom no previous conduct
on my father's part had ever angered as this did; nor did
the scheme succeed in separating him from me; for, while he on
every possible occasion avoided the presence of that spy (as he
termed Mrs. Ellis), his inventive genius continually contrived
opportunities of seeing and conversing with me in her absence,—
a course of behavior calculated to give still greater coloring to
my father's suspicions.

“I am convinced that he was mainly actuated to this course
by a deep sense of unkindness and injustice, and a desire to
manifest his independence of what he considered unwarrantable
tyranny; nor have I reason to believe that the idea of romance,
or even future marriage with myself, entered at all into his calculations;
and I, who at that time knew, or, at least, was influenced
by no higher law than his will, lent myself unhesitatingly
to a species of petty deception, to clude the vigilance which would
have kept us apart. My father, however, as is frequently the
case with people of his unsocial temperament and apparent obtuseness
of observation, saw more of our manœuvring than we were
aware of, and imagined far more than ever in reality existed.
He watched us carefully, and, contrary to his usual course of

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proceeding, forbore for a time any interference. I have since
been led to think that he designed to wean us from each other
in a less unnatural manner than that which he had at first
attempted, by availing himself of the earliest opportunity to
transfer his step-son to a situation connected with his own mercantile
establishment, either in a foreign country, or a distant
part of our own; and forbore, until his plans were ripe, to distress
and grieve me by giving way to the feelings of annoyance and
displeasure which were burning within him,—for he was, and
had ever been, as kind and indulgent toward his undeserving
child as was consistent with a due maintenance of his authority.

“Before such a course could be carried out, however, circumstances
occurred, and suspicions became aroused, which destroyed
one of their victims, and plunged the other—”

Here Emily's voice failed her. She laid her head upon Gertrude's
shoulder, and sobbed bitterly.

“Do not try to tell me the rest, dear Emily,” said Gertrude.
“It is enough for me to know that you are so unhappy. Do not
make yourself wretched by dwelling, for my sake, upon sorrows
that are past.”

“Past!” replied Emily, recovering her voice, and wiping away
her tears; “no, they are never past; it is only because I am so
little wont to speak of them that they overcome me now. Nor
am I unhappy, Gertrude. It is but rarely that my peace is
shaken; nor would I now allow my weak nerves to be unstrung
by imparting to another the secrets of that never-to-be-forgotten
time of trial, were it not that, since you know so well how harmoniously
and sweetly my life is passing on to its great and
eternal awakening, I desire to prove to my darling child the
power of that heavenly faith which has turned my darkness into
marvellous light, and made afflictions such as mine the blessed
harbingers of final joy.

“But I have not much more to tell, and that shall be in as
few words as possible.”

She then went on, in a firm though low and suppressed voice.

“I was suddenly taken ill with a fever. Mrs. Ellis, whom I
had always treated with coldness, and often with disdain (for you

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must remember I was a spoiled child), nursed me by night and
day with a care and devotion which I had no right to expect at
her hands; and, under her watchful attendance, and the skilful
treatment of our good Dr. Jeremy (even then the family physician),
I began, after some weeks, to recover. One day, when I
was sufficiently well to be up and dressed for several hours at a
time, I went, for change of air and scene, into my father's library,
the room next my own, and there quite alone lay half reclining
upon the sofa. Mrs. Ellis had gone to attend to household duties,
but, before she left me, she brought from the adjoining chamber
and placed within my reach a small table, upon which were
arranged various phials, glasses, etc., and among them everything
which I could possibly require before her return. It was towards
the latter part of an afternoon in June, and I lay watching the
approach of sunset from an opposite window. I was oppressed
with a sad sense of loneliness, for during the past six weeks I
had enjoyed no society but that of my nurse, together with periodical
visits from my father; and felt therefore no common satisfaction
and pleasure when my most congenial but now nearly
forbidden associate unexpectedly entered the room. He had not
seen me since my illness, and after this unusually protracted and
painful separation our meeting was proportionately tender and
affectionate. He had, with all the fire of a hot and ungoverned
temper, a woman's depth of feeling, warmth of heart, and sympathizing
sweetness of manner. Well do I remember the expression
of his noble face, the manly tones of his voice, as, seated
beside me on the wide couch, he bathed the temples of my aching
head with cologne, which he took from the table near by, at the
same time expressing again and again his joy at once more seeing
me.

“How long we had sat thus I cannot tell, but the twilight was
deepening in the room, when we were suddenly interrupted by
my father, who entered abruptly, came towards us with hasty steps,
but, stopping short when within a yard or two, folded his arms
and confronted his step-son with such a look of angry contempt
as I had never before seen upon his face. The latter rose and

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stood before him with a glance of proud defiance, and then ensued
a scene which I have neither the wish nor the power to describe.

“It is sufficient to say that in the double accusation which my
excited parent now brought against the object of his wrath he
urged the fact of his seeking (as he expressed it) by mean, base,
and contemptible artifice to win the affections, and with them the
expected fortune, of his only child, as a secondary and pardonable
crime, compared with his deeper, darker, and but just
detected guilt of forgery,—forgery of a large amount, and upon
his benefactor's name.

“To this day, so far as I know,” said Emily, with feeling,
“that charge remains uncontradicted; but I did not then, I do
not now, and I never can believe it. Whatever were his faults
(and his impetuous temper betrayed him into many), of this dark
crime (though I have not even his own word in attestation) I
dare pronounce him innocent.

“You cannot wonder, Gertrude, that in my feeble and invalid
condition I was hardly capable of realizing at the time, far less
of retaining any distinct recollection of the circumstances that
followed my father's words. A few dim pictures, however, the
last my poor eyes ever beheld, are still engraved upon my memory,
and visible to my imagination. My father stood with his back
to the light, and from the first moment of his entering the room
I never saw his face again; but the countenance of the other, the
object of his accusation, illumined as it was by the last rays of
the golden sunset, stands ever in the foreground of my recollection.
His head was thrown proudly back; conscious but injured innocence
proclaimed itself in his clear, calm eye, which shrunk not
from the closest scrutiny; his hand was clenched, as if he were
vainly striving to repress the passion which proclaimed itself in
the compressed lips, the set teeth, the deep and angry indignation
which overspread his face. He did not speak,—apparently he
could not command voice to do so; but my father continued to
upbraid him, in language, no doubt, cutting and severe, though
I remember not a word of it. It was fearful to watch the working
of the young man's face, while he stood there listening to
taunts and enduring reproaches which were no doubt believed by

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him who uttered them to be just and merited, but which wrought
the youth to a degree of frenzy which it was terrible indeed to
witness. Suddenly he took one step forward, slowly lifting the
clenched hand which had hitherto hung at his side. I know not
whether he might then have intended to call Heaven to witness
his innocence of the crime with which he was charged, or whether
he might have designed to strike my father; for I sprang from
my seat, prepared to rush between them, and implore them, for
my sake, to desist; but my strength failed me, and with a shriek
I sunk back in a fainting fit.

“O, the horror of my awakening! How shall I find words to
tell it?—and yet I must! Listen, Gertrude. He—the poor,
ruined boy—sprung to help me; and, maddened by injustice, he
knew not what he did. Heaven is my witness, I never blamed
him; and if, in my agony, I uttered words that seemed like a
reproach, it was because I too was frantic, and knew not what I
said!”

“What!” exclaimed Gertrude; “he did not—”

“No, no! he did not—he did not put out my eyes!” exclaimed
Emily; “it was an accident. He reached forward for
the cologne which he had just had in his hand. There were
several bottles, and, in his haste, he seized one containing a powerful
acid which Mrs. Ellis had found occasion to use in my sick
room. It had a heavy glass stopper,—and he—his hand was
unsteady, and he spilt it all—”

“On your eyes?” shrieked Gertrude.

Emily bowed her head.

“O, poor Emily!” cried Gertrude, “and wretched, wretched
young man!”

“Wretched indeed!” ejaculated Emily. “Bestow all your
pity on him, Gertrude, for his was the harder fate of the two.”

“O, Emily! how intense must have been the pain you endured!
How could you suffer so, and live?”

“Do you mean the pain from my eyes? That was severe
indeed, but the mental agony was worse!”

“What became of him?” said Gertrude. “What did Mr.
Graham do?”

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