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Let us now revisit calmer scenes, and turn our eyes towards the
quiet, familiar country-seat of Mr. Graham.

The old gentleman himself, wearied with travels, and society
but little congenial to his years, is pacing up and down his garden-walks,
stopping now and then to observe the growth of some
favorite tree, or the overgrowth of some petted shrub, whose neglected,
drooping twigs call for the master's pruning hand; his
contented, satisfied countenance denoting plainly enough how
rejoiced he is to find himself once more in his cherished homestead.
Perhaps he would not like to acknowledge it, but it is
nevertheless a fact, that no small part of his satisfaction arises
from the circumstance that the repose and seclusion of his household
is rendered complete and secure by the temporary absence
of its bustling, excitable mistress, whom he has left behind him
in New York. There is something pleasant, too, in being able to
indulge his imagination so far as almost to deceive himself into
the belief that the good old times have come back again when
he was his own master; for, to tell the truth, Mrs. Graham takes
advantage of his years and growing infirmities, and rules him
with wonderful tact.

Emily and Gertrude, too, are closely associated with those
good old times; and it adds greatly to the delusion of his fancy
to dwell upon the certainty that they are both in the house, and
that he shall see them at dinner; a cosey, comfortable dinner, at

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which Mrs. Ellis will preside with her wonted formality and precision,
and which no noisy, intruding upstarts will venture to
interrupt or disturb.

Yes, Gertrude is there, as well as the rest, saved (she hardly
knew how) from the watery grave that threatened and almost
engulfed her, and established once more in the peaceful, venerable
spot, now the dearest to her on earth.

When, with some difficulty, restored to the consciousness which
had utterly forsaken her in the protracted struggle between death
and life, she was informed that she had been found and picked
up by some humane individuals, who had hastily pushed a boat
from the shore, and aided in the rescue of the sufferers; that she
was clinging to a chair, which she had probably grasped when
washed away by the sudden rushing of the water, and that her
situation was such that, a moment more, and it would have been
impossible to save her from the flames, close to which she was
drifting.

But of all this she had herself no recollection. From the moment
when she committed her light weight to the frail tenure of
the rope, until she opened her eyes in a quiet spot, and saw
Emily leaning anxiously over the bed upon which she lay, all had
been a blank to her senses. A few hours from the time of the
terrible catastrophe brought Mr. Graham to the scene, and the next
day restored all three in safety to the long-deserted old mansion-house
in D—.

This respectable, venerable habitation, and its adjoining grounds,
were nearly the same aspect as when they met the admiring eyes
of Gerty on the first visit that she made Miss Graham in
her early childhood,—that long-expected and keenly-enjoyed
visit, which proved a lasting topic for her youthful enthusiasm
to dwell upon.

The great elm-trees, casting their deep shade upon the green
and velvety lawa in front; the neat, smooth gravel-walk, which
led to the door-step, and then wound off in separate directions,
into the mass of embowered shrubbery on the right, and the
peach-orchard on the left; the old arbor, with its luxuriant
growth of woodbine; the large summer-house, with its knotted,

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untrimmed, rustic pillars; the little fish-pond and fountain; and
especially the flower-garden, during the last season nearly restored,
by Gertrude's true friend George, to its original appearance when
under her superintendence; all had the same friendly, familiar
look as during the first happy summers, when Emily, sitting in
her garden-chair beneath the wide-spreading tulip-tree, listened
with delight to the cheerful voice, the merry laugh, and the light
step of the joyous little gardener, who, as she moved about in her
favorite element among the flowers, seemed to her affectionate,
loving blind friend the sweetest Flora of them all.

Now and then, a stray robin, the last of the numerous throng
that had flocked to the cherry-feast and departed long ago, came
hopping across the paths, and over the neatly-trimmed box, lifting
his head, and looking about him with an air that seemed to say,
“It is time for me, too, to be off.” A family of squirrels, on the
other hand, old pets of Gertrude's, whom she loved to watch as
they played in the willow-tree opposite her window, were just
gathering in their harvest, and were busily journeying up and
down, each with a nut in its mouth (for there were nut-trees in
that garden, and quiet corners, such as squirrels love). Last
year they did not come,—at least, they did not stay,—for Mrs.
Graham and her new gardener voted them a nuisance; but this
year they had had it all their own way, and were laying up rich
stores for the coming winter.

The old house itself had a look of contentment and repose.
The hall-door stood wide open. Mr. Graham's arm-chair was in
its usual place; Gertrude's birds, of which Mrs. Ellis had taken
excellent care, were hopping about on the slender perches of the
great Indian cage which hung on the wide piazza. The old
house-dog lay stretched in the sun, sure that nobody would molest
him. Plenty of flowers once more graced the parlor, and all
was very still, very quiet, and very comfortable; and Mr. Graham
thought so, as he came up the steps, patted the dog, whistled
to the birds, sat down in the arm-chair, and took the morning
paper from the hand of the neat housemaid, who came bringing
it across the hall.

The dear old place was the dear old place still. Time seemed

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only to lend it additional grace, to give it an air of greater
peace, seclusion and repose.

But how is it with the inmates?

Mr. Graham, as we have already hinted, has been having new
experiences; and although some features of his character are too
closely inwrought to be ever wholly eradicated, he is, in many
respects, a changed man. The time had once been when he
would have resisted courageously every innovation upon his
domestic prejudices and comforts; but old age and ill-health had
somewhat broken his spirit, and subdued his hitherto invincible
will. Just at this crisis, too, he united his fortunes with one
who had sufficient energy of purpose, combined with just enough
good-nature and tact, to gain her point on every occasion when
she thought it material to do so. She indulged him, to be sure,
in his favorite hobbies, allowed him to continue in the fond
belief that his sway (when he chose to exercise it) was indisputable,
and yet contrived to decide herself in all important
matters, and had, at last, driven him to such extremity, that he
had taken it for his maxim to get what comfort he could, and let
things take their course.

No wonder, therefore, that he looked forward to a few weeks
of old-fashioned enjoyment much as a school-boy does to his
vacation.

Emily is sitting in her own room, carelessly clad in a loose
wrapper. She is paler than ever, and her face has an anxious,
troubled expression. Every time the door opens, she starts,
trembles, a sudden flush overspreads her face, and twice already
during the morning she has suddenly burst into tears. Every
exertion, even that of dressing, seems a labor to her; she cannot
listen to Gertrude's reading, but will constantly interrupt her, to
ask questions concerning the burning boat, her own and others'
rescue, and every circumstance connected with the terrible scene
of agony and death. Her nervous system is evidently fearfully
shattered, and Gertrude looks at her and weeps, and wonders to
see how her wonted calmness and composure have forsaken her.

They have been together since breakfast, but Emily will not
allow Gertrude to stay with her any longer. She must go away

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and walk, or, at least, change the scene. She may come back in
an hour and help her dress for dinner,—a ceremony which Miss
Graham will by no means omit, her chief desire seeming to be to
maintain the appearance of health and happiness in the presence
of her father. Gertrude feels that Emily is in earnest,—that
she really wishes to be left alone; and, believing that, for the
first time, her presence even is burdensome, she retires to her
own room, leaving Emily to bow her head upon her hands, and,
for the third time, utter a few hysterical sobs.

Gertrude is immediately followed by Mrs. Ellis, who shuts the
door, seats herself, and, with a manner of her own, alone sufficient
to excite alarm, adds to the poor girl's fear and distress by
declaiming at length upon the dreadful effect the recollection of
that shocking accident is having upon poor Emily. “She's completely
upset,” is the housekeeper's closing remark, “and if she
don't begin to get better in a day or two, I don't hesitate to say
there's no knowing what the consequences may be. Emily is
feeble, and not fit to travel; I wish, for my part, she had staid at
home. I don't approve of travelling, especially in these shocking
dangerous times.”

Fortunately for poor Gertrude, Mrs. Ellis is at length summoned
to the kitchen, and she is left to reflect upon the strange
circumstances of the last few days,—days fraught to her with
matter of thought for years, if so long a time had been allowed
her. A moment, however, and she is again interrupted. The
housemaid who carried Mr. Graham his paper has something for
her, too. A letter! With a trembling hand she receives it,
scarcely daring to look at the writing or post-mark. Her first
thought is of Willie; but before she could indulge either a hope
or a fear on that score the illusion is dispelled, for, though the
post-mark is New York, and he might be there, the hand-writing
is wholly strange. Another idea, of scarcely less moment, flashes
into her mind, and, hardly able to breathe from the violence of
the emotions by which she is oppressed, she breaks the seal and
reads:

“My darling Gertrude: My much-loved child,—for such

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you indeed are, though a father's agony of fear and despair alone
wrung from me the words that claimed you. It was no madness
that, in the dark hour of danger, compelled me to clasp you to
my heart and call you mine. A dozen times before had I been
seized by the same emotion, and as often had it been subdued
and smothered. And even now I would crush the promptings of
nature, and depart and weep my poor life away alone; but the
voice within me has spoken once, and cannot again be silenced.
Had I seen you happy, gay and light-hearted, I would not have
asked to share your joy, far less would I have east a shadow on
your path; but you are sad and troubled, my poor child, and
your grief unites the tie between us closer than that of kindred,
and makes you a thousand times my daughter; for I am a
wretched, weary man, and know how to feel for others' woe.

“You have a kind and a gentle heart, my child. You have
wept once for the stranger's sorrows,—will you now refuse to
pity, if you cannot love, the solitary parent, who, with a breaking
heart and a trembling hand, writes the ill-fated word that dooms
him, perhaps, to the hatred and contempt of the only being on
earth with whom he can claim the fellowship of a natural tie?
Twice before have I striven to utter it, and, laying down my pen,
have shrunk from the cruel task. But, hard as it is to speak, I
find it harder to still the beating of my restless heart; therefore
listen to me, though it may be for the last time. Is there one
being on earth whom you shudder to think of? Is there one
associated only in your mind with deeds of darkness and of
shame? Is there one name which you have from your childhood
learned to abhor and hate; and, in proportion as you love your
best friend, have you been taught to shrink from and despise her
worst enemy? It cannot be otherwise. Ah! I tremble to think
how my child will recoil from her father when she learns the
secret, so long preserved, so sorrowfully revealed, that he is

As Gertrude looked up when she had finished reading this
strange and unintelligible letter, her countenance expressed only
complete bewilderment,—her eyes glistened with great tears,

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her face was flushed with wonder and excitement; but she was
evidently at a total loss to account for the meaning of the
stranger's words.

She sat for an instant wildly gazing into vacaney, then, springing
suddenly up, with the letter grasped in one hand, ran across
the entry towards Emily's room, to share with her the wonderful
contents, and eagerly ask her opinion of their hidden meaning.
She stopped, however, when her hand was on the door-lock.
Emily was already ill,—the victim of agitation and excitement,—
it would not do to distress or even disturb her; and, retreating
to her own room as hastily as she had come, Gertrude once more
sat down, to reperuse the singular words, and endeavor to find
some clue to the mystery.

That Mr. Phillips and the letter-writer were identical she at
once perceived. It was no slight impression that his exclamation
and conduct during the time of their imminent danger on board
the boat had left upon the mind of Gertrude. During the three
days that had succeeded the accident, the words “My child! my
own darling!” had been continually ringing in her ears and
haunting her imagination. Now the blissful idea would flash
upon her that the noble, disinterested stranger, who had risked his
life so daringly in her own and Emily's cause, might indeed be
her father; and every fibre of her being had thrilled at the
thought, while her head grew dizzy and confused with the strong
sensation of hope that agitated and almost overwhelmed her
brain. Then, again, she had repulsed the idea, as suggesting
only the height of impossibility and folly, and had compelled
herself to take a more rational and probable view of the matter,
and believe that the stranger's words and conduct were merely
the result of powerful and overwhelming excitement, or possibly
the indications of a somewhat disordered and unsettled imagination,—
a supposition which much of his previous behavior
seemed to warrant.

Her first inquiries, on recovering consciousness, had been for
the preserver of Emily and Isabel, but he had disappeared; no
trace of him could be obtained, and Mr. Graham soon arriving
and hurrying them from the neighborhood she had been

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reluctantly compelled to abandon the hope of seeing him again, and
was consequently left entirely to her own vague and unsatisfactory
conjectures.

The same motives which now induced her to forbear consulting
Emily concerning the mysterious epistle had hitherto prevented
her from imparting the secret of Mr. Phillips' inexplicable language
and manner; but she had dwelt upon them none the less,
and day and night had silently pondered, not only upon recent
events, but on the entire demeanor of this strange man towards
her, ever since the earliest moment of their acquaintance.

The first perusal of the letter served only to excite and alarm
her. It neither called forth distinct ideas and impressions, nor
added life and coloring to those she had already formed.

But, as she sat for more than an hour gazing upon the page,
which she read and re-read until it was blistered and blotted with
the great tears that fell upon it, the varying expression of her
face denoted the emotions that, one after another, possessed her;
and which, at last, snatching a sheet of paper, she committed to
writing with a feverish rapidity, that betrayed how deeply, almost
fearfully, her whole being, heart, mind and body, bent and staggered
beneath the weight of contending hopes, anxieties, warmlyenkindled
affections, and gloomy upstarting fears.

“My dear, dear Father,—If I may dare to believe that you
are so, and, if not that, my best of friends,—how shall I write to
you, and what shall I say, since all your words are a mystery!
Father! blessed word! O, that my noble friend were indeed my
father! Yet tell me, tell me, how can this be? Alas! I feel a
sad presentiment that the bright dream is all an illusion, an error.
I never before remember to have heard the name of Philip Amory.
My sweet, pure and gentle Emily has taught me to love all the
world; and hatred and contempt are foreign to her nature, and, I
trust, to my own. Moreover, she has not an enemy in the wide
world; never had, or could have. One might as well war with
an angel of Heaven as with a creatures so holy and lovely as she.

“Nor bid me think of yourself as a man of sin and crime. It
cannot be. It would be wronging a noble nature to believe it,

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and I say again it cannot be. Gladly would I trust myself to
repose on the bosom of such a parent; gladly would I hail the
sweet duty of consoling the sorrows of one so self-sacrificing, so
kind, so generous; whose life has been so freely offered for me,
and for others whose existence was dearer to me than my own.
When you took me in your arms and called me your child, your
darling child, I fancied that the excitement of that dreadful scene
had for the moment disturbed your mind and brain so far as to
invest me with a false identity,—perhaps confound my image with
that of some loved and absent one. I now believe that it was no
sudden madness, but rather that I have been all along mistaken
for another, whose glad office it may perhaps be to cheer a father's
saddened life, while I remain unrecognized, unsought,—the
fatherless, motherless one I am accustomed to consider myself.
If you have lost a daughter, God grant she may be restored to
you, to love you as I would do, were I so blessed as to be that
daughter! And I,—consider me not a stranger; let me be your
child in heart; let me love, pray and weep for you; let me pour
out my soul in thankfulness for the kind care and sympathy you
have already given me. And yet, though I disclaim it all, and
dare not, yes, dare not dwell for a moment on the thought that
you are otherwise than deceived in believing me your child, my
heart leaps up in spite of me, and I tremble and almost cease to
breathe as there flashes upon me the possibility, the blissful, God-given
hope! No, no! I will not think it, lest I could not bear
to have it crushed! O, what am I writing? I know not. I
cannot endure the suspense long; write quickly, or come to me, my
father,—for I will call you so once, though perhaps never again.

Mr. Phillips—or rather Mr. Amory, for we will call him by his
true name—had either forgotten or neglected to mention his address.
Gertrude did not observe this circumstance until she had
folded and was preparing to direct her letter. She then recollected
the unfortunate omission, and for a moment experienced a
severe pang in the thought that her communication would never
reach him. She was reässured, however, on examining the

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postmark, which was evidently New York, to which place she unhesitatingly
addressed her missive; and then, unwilling to trust it to
other hands, tied on her bonnet, caught up a veil with which to
protect and conceal her agitated face, and hastened to deposit
the letter herself in the village post-office.

To persons of an excitable and imaginative temperament there
is, perhaps, no greater or more painful state of trial than that
occasioned by severe and long-continued suspense. When we
know precisely what we have to bear, we can usually call to our
aid the needed strength and submission; but a more than ordinary
patience and forbearance is necessary to enable us calmly and
tranquilly to await the approach of an important crisis, big with
events the nature of which we can have no means of foreseeing,
but which will inevitably exercise an all-controlling influence upon
the life. One moment hope usurps the mastery, and promises a
happy issue; we smile, breathe freely, and banish care and
anxiety; but an instant more, and some word, look, or even
thought, changes the whole current of our feelings, clouds take
the place of smiles, the chest heaves with a sudden oppression,
fear starts up like a nightmare, and in proportion as we have
cherished a confident joy are we plunged into the torture of doubt
or the agony of despair.

Gertrude's case seemed a peculiarly trying one. She had been,
already, for a week past, struggling with a degree of suspense and
anxiety which agitated her almost beyond endurance; and now a
new occasion of uncertainty and mystery had arisen, involving in
its issues an almost equal amount of self-questioning and torture.
It seemed almost beyond the power of so young, so sensitive, and
so inexperienced a girl, to rally such self-command as would
enable her to control her emotions, disguise them from observation,
and compel herself to endure alone and in silence this cruel
dispensation of her destiny.

But she did do it, and bravely, too. Whether the greatness
of the emergency called forth, as it ever does in a true-hearted
woman, a proportionate greatness of spirit; whether the complication
of her web of destiny compelled her, with clesed hands
and a submissive will, to cease all efforts for its disentanglement;

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or, whether, with that humble trust, which ever grew more deep
and ardent as the sense of her own helplessness pressed upon her,
she turned for help to Him whose strength is made perfect in weakness,—
it is certain that, as she took her way towards home after
depositing the letter in the post-master's hand, the firmness of her
step, the calm uplifting of her eye, gave token that she that moment
conceived a brave resolve,—a resolve which, during the two
days that intervened ere she received the expected reply, never
for one moment deserted her.

And it was this. She would endeavor to suspend for the present
those vain conjectures, that fruitless weighing of probabilities,
which served only to harass her mind, puzzle her understanding,
and destroy her peace; she would ponder no more on matters
which concerned herself, but with a desperate effort turn all her
mental and all her physical energy into some other and more disinterested
channel, and patiently wait until the cloud which hung
over her fate should be dissipated by the light of truth, and explanation
triumph over mystery.

She was herself surprised, afterwards, when she called to mind
and brought up in long array the numerous household, domestic
and friendly duties which she almost unconsciously accomplished
in those few days during which she was wrestling with thoughts
that were ever struggling to be uppermost, and were only kept
down by a force of will that was almost exhausting.

She dusted and reärranged every book in Mr. Graham's extensive
library; unpacked and put in their appropriate places every
article of her own and Emily's long-scattered wardrobe; aided
Mrs. Ellis in her labors to restore order to the china-closet and the
linen-press; and many other neglected or long-postponed duties
now found a time for their fulfilment.

In these praiseworthy efforts to drive away such reflections as
were fatal to her peace, and employ her hands, at least, if not
her heart, in such services as might promote the comfort and
well-being of others, let us leave her for the present.

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