[figure description] Page 475.[end figure description]

“Captain Grey died. We were within a week's sail of our
destination when he was taken ill, and three days before we were
safely anchored in the harbor of Rio he breathed his last. I
shared with Lucy the office of miuistering to the suffering man,
closed his eyes at last, and carried the fainting girl in my arms to
another part of the vessel. With kind words and persuasions I
restored her to her senses; and then, as the full consciousness of
her desolation rushed upon her, she sunk at once into a state of
hopeless despondency, more painful to witness than her previous
condition of utter insensibility. Captain Grey had made no provision
for his daughter; indeed, it would have been impossible for
him to do so, as the state of his affairs afterwards proved. Well
might the poor girl lament her sad fate! for she was without a
relative in the world, penniless, and approaching a strange shore,
which afforded no refuge to the orphan. We buried her father in
the sea; and, that sad office fulfilled, I sought Lucy, and endeavored,
as I had several times tried to do without success, to arouse
her to a sense of her situation, and advise with her concerning
the future; for we were now so near our port that in a few hours
we might be compelled to leave the vessel and seek quarters in
the city. She listened to me without replying.

“At length I hinted at the necessity of my leaving her, and

[figure description] Page 476.[end figure description]

begged to know if she had any plans for the future. She answered
me only by a burst of tears.

“I expressed the deepest sympathy for her grief, and begged
her not to weep.

“And then, with many sobs, and interrupting herself by frequent
outbreaks and exclamations of vehement sorrow, she threw
herself upon my compassion, and, with unaffected simplicity and
child-like artlessness, entreated me not to leave, or, as she termed
it, to desert her. She reminded me that she was all alone in the
world; that the moment she stepped foot on shore she should be
in a land of strangers; and, appealing to my mercy, besought me
not to forsake and leave her to die alone.

“What could I do? I had nothing on earth to live for. We
were both alike orphaned and desolate. There was but one point
of difference. I could work and protect her; she could do neither
for herself. It would be something for me to live for; and for
her, though but a refuge of poverty and want, it was better
than the exposure and suffering that must otherwise await her.
I told her plainly how little I had to offer; that my heart even
was crushed and broken; but that I was ready to labor in her
behalf, to guard her from danger, to pity, and, perhaps, in time,
learn to love her.

“The unsophisticated girl had never thought of marriage; she
had sought the protection of a friend, not a husband; but I
explained to her that the lattor tie only would obviate the necessity
of our parting; and, in the humility of sorrow, she finally
accepted my unflattering offer.

“The only confidant to our sudden engagement, the only witness
of the marriage, which, within a few hours, ensued, was a veteran
mariner, an old, weather-beaten sailor, who had known and loved
Lucy from her childhood, and whose name will be, perhaps, familiar
to you,—Ben Grant. He accompanied us on shore, and to
the church, which was our first destination. He followed us to
the humble lodgings with which we contrived for the present to
be contented, and devoted himself to Lucy with self-sacrificing,
but in one instance, alas! (as you will soon learn) with mistaken
and fatal zeal.

[figure description] Page 477.[end figure description]

“After much difficulty, I obtained employment from a man in
whom I accidentally recognized an old and valued friend of my
father. He had been in Rio several years, was actively engaged
in trade, and willingly employed me as clerk, occasionally despatching
me from home to transact business at a distance. My duties
being regular and profitable, we were soon not only raised above
want, but I was enabled to place my young wife in a situation
that insured comfort, if not luxury.

“The sweetness of her disposition, the cheerfulness with which
she endured privation, the earnestness with which she strove
to make me happy, were not without effect. I perseveringly
rallied from my gloom; I succeeded in banishing the frown
from my brow; and the premature wrinkles, which her little hand
would softly sweep away, finally ceased to return. The few
months that I passed with your mother, Gertrude, form a sweet
episode in the memory of my stormy life. I came to love her
much,—not as I loved Emily; that could not be expected,—but,
as the solitary flower that bloomed on the grave of all my early hopes,
she cast a fragrance round my path; and her child is not more dear
to me because a part of myself than as the memento of the cherished
blossom, snatched hastily from my hand, and rudely crushed.

“About two months after your birth, my child, and before your
eyes had ever learned to brighten at the sight of your father, who
was necessarily much from home, the business in which I was
engaged called me, in the capacity of an agent, to a station at
some distance from Rio. I had been absent nearly a month, had
extended my journey beyond my original intentions, and had written
regularly to Lucy, informing her of all my movements (though
I have since believed that the letters never reached her), when
the neighborhood in which I was stationed became infected with
a fatal malaria. For the sake of my family, I took every measure
to ward off contagion, but failed. I was seized with the terrible
fever, and lay for weeks at the point of death. I was cruelly
neglected during my illness; for I had no friends near me, and
my slender purse held out little inducement for mercenary service;
but my sufferings and forebodings on account of Lucy and yourself
were far greater than any which I endured from my bodily

[figure description] Page 478.[end figure description]

torments, although the latter were great indeed. I conjured up
every fear that the imagination could conceive; but nothing, alas!
which could compare with the reality that awaited me, when, after
an almost interminable illness, I made my way, destitute, ragged
and emaciated, back to Rio. I sought my former home. It was
deserted, and I was warned to flee from its vicinity, as the fearful
disease of which I had already been the prey had nearly depopulated
that and the neighboring streets. I made every inquiry,
but could obtain no intelligence of my wife and child. I hastened
to the horrible charnel-house where, during the raging of the pestilence,
the unrecognized dead were exposed; but, among the disfigured
and mouldering remains, it was impossible to distinguish
friends from strangers. I lingered about the city for weeks, in
hopes to gain some information concerning Lucy; but could find
no one who had ever heard of her. All day I wandered about the
streets and on the wharves,—the latter being places which Ben
Grant (in whose faithful charge I had left your mother and yourself)
was in the habit of frequenting,—but not a syllable could I
learn of any persons that answered my description.

“My first thought had been that they would naturally seek my
employer, to learn, if possible, the cause of my prolonged absence;
and, on finding my home empty, I had hastened in search of him.
But he too had, within a recent period, fallen a victim to the
prevailing distemper. His place of business was closed, and the
establishment broken up. I prolonged my search and continued
my inquiries until hope died within me. I was assured that
scarce an inmate of the fatal neighborhood where I had left my
family had escaped the withering blast; and convinced, finally,
that my fate was still pursuing me with an unmitigated wrath, of
which this last blow was but a single expression, that I might have
foreseen and expected, I madly agreed to work my passage in the
first vessel which promised me an escape from scenes so fraught
with harrowing recollections.

“And now commenced in truth that course of wretched wandering,
which, knowing neither pause nor cessation, has made up the
sum of my existence. With varied ends in view, following stronglycontrasted
employments, and with fluctuating fortune, I have

[figure description] Page 479.[end figure description]

travelled over the world. My feet have trodden almost every land; I
have sailed upon every sea, and breathed the air of every clime.
I am familiar with the city and the wilderness, the civilized man
and the savage. I have learned the sad lesson that peace is
nowhere, and friendship for the most part but a name. If I have
taught myself to hate, shun and despise humanity, it is because I
know it well.

“Once, during my wanderings, I visited the home of my boyhood.
Unseen and unknown I trod familiar ground, and gazed
on familiar though time-worn faces. I stood at the window of
Mr. Graham's library; saw the contented, happy countenance of
Emily,—happy in her blindness and her forgetfulness of the past.
A young girl sat near the fire, endeavoring to read by its flickering
light. I knew not then what gave such a charm to her thoughtful
features, nor why my eyes dwelt upon them with a rare pleasure;
for there was no voice to proclaim to the father's heart that
he looked on the face of his child. I am not sure that the strong
impulse which prompted me then to enter, acknowledge my identity,
and beg Emily to speak to me a word of forgiveness, might
not have prevailed over the dread of her displeasure; but Mr.
Graham at the moment made his appearance, cold and implacable
as ever; I looked upon him an instant, then fled from the
house, and the next day departed for other lands.

“Although, in the various labors which I was compelled to undertake,
to earn for myself a decent maintenance, I had more than
once met with such success as to give me temporary independence,
and enable me to indulge myself in expensive travelling, I had
never amassed a fortune; indeed, I had not cared to do so, since I
had no use for money, except to employ it in the gratification of
my immediate wants. Accident, however, at last thrust upon me
a wealth which I could scarcely be said to have sought.

“After a year spent in the wilderness of the west, amid adventures
the relation of which would seem to you almost incredible,
I gradually continued my retreat across the country, and, after
encountering innumerable hardships in a solitary journey, which
had in it no other object than the indulgence of my vagrant habits,
I found myself in that land which has recently been termed the

[figure description] Page 480.[end figure description]

land of promise, but which has proved to many a greedy emigrant
a land of falsehood and deceit. For me, however, who sought it
not, it showered gold. I was among the earliest discoverers of its
treasure-vaults,—one of the most successful, though the least laborious
of the seekers after gain. Nor was it merely, or indeed
chiefly, at the mines that fortune favored me. With the first
results of my labors I chanced to purchase an immense tract of
land, little dreaming at the time that those desert acres were destined
to become the streets and squares of a great and prosperous
city.

“So it was, however; and without effort, almost without my own
knowledge, I achieved the greatness which springs from untold
wealth.

“But this was not all. The blessed accident which led me to
this golden land was the means of disclosing a pearl of price, a
treasure in comparison with which California and all its mines
shrink to my mind into insignificance. You know how the war-cry
went forth to all lands, and men of every name and nation brought
their arms to the field of fortune. Famine came next, with discase
and death in its train; and many a man, hurrying on to reap
the golden harvest, fell by the way-side, without once seeing the
waving of the yellow grain.

“Half scorning the greedy rabble, I could not refuse, in this my
time of prosperity, to minister to the wants of such as fell in my
way; and now, for once, my humanity found its own reward.

“A miserable, ragged, half-starved and apparently dying man
crept to the door of my tent (for these were the primitive days,
when that land afforded no better habitation), and asked in a
feeble voice for charity. I did not refuse to admit him into my
narrow domicile, and to the extent of my ability relieve his suffering
condition. He proved to be the victim of want rather than
disease, and, his hunger appeased, the savage brutality of his coarse
nature soon manifested itself in the dogged indifference with which
he received a stranger's bounty, and the gross ingratitude with
which he abused my hospitality. A few days sufficed to restore
him to his full strength; and then, anxious to dismiss my visitor,
whose conduct had already excited suspicions of his good faith, I

[figure description] Page 481.[end figure description]

gave him warning that he must depart; at the same time placing
in his hands a sufficient amount of gold to insure his support until
he could reach the mines, which were his professed destination.

“He appeared dissatisfied, and begged permission to remain until
the next morning, as the night was near, and he had no shelter
provided. To this I made no objection, little imagining how base
a serpent I was harboring. At midnight I was awakened from
my light and easily-disturbed sleep, to find my lodger busily
engaged in rifling my property, and preparing to take an unceremonious
leave of my dwelling. Nor did his villany end here.
Upon my seizing and charging him with the theft, he snatched a
weapon which lay near at haud, and attempted the life of his benefactor.
I was prepared, however, to ward off the stroke, and by
means of my superior strength succeeded in a few moments in subduing
and mastering my desperate antagonist. He now crouched
at my feet in such abject and mean submission as might have been
expected from so contemptible a knave. Well might he tremble
with fear; for the lynch-law was then in full force, and summary
in its execution of justice upon criminals like him. I should
probably have handed the traitor over to his fate, but, ere I had
time to do so, he by chance held out to my cupidity a bribe so
tempting, that I forgot the deservings of my knavish guest in the
eagerness with which I bartered his freedom as the price of its
possession.

“He freely emptied his pockets at my bidding, and restored to
me the gold, for the loss of which I never should have repined.
As the base metal rolled at my feet, however, there glittered among
the coins a jewel as truly mine as any of the rest, but which, as
it met my sight, filled me with greater surprise and rapture than
if it had been a new-fallen star.

“It was a ring of peculiar design and workmanship, which had
once been the property of my father, and after his death had been
worn by my mother until the time of her marriage with Mr. Graham,
when it was transferred to myself. I had ever prized it as
a precious heirloom, and it was one of the few valuables which I
took with me when I fled from my step-father's house. This ring,
with a watch and some other trinkets, had been left in the

[figure description] Page 482.[end figure description]

possession of Lucy when I parted with her at Rio, and the sight of it
once more seemed to me like a voice from the grave. I eagerly
sought to learn from my prisoner the source whence it had been
obtained, but he maintained an obstinate silence. It was now my
turn to plead, and at length the promise of instant permission to
depart, `unwhipped by justice,' at the conclusion of his tale, wrung
from him a secret fraught to me with vital interest. What I
learned from him, in disjointed and often incoherent phrases, I
will relate to you in few words.

“This man was Stephen Grant, the son of my old friend Ben.
He had heard from his father's lips the story of your mother's
misfortunes; and the circumstance of a violent quarrel, which arose
between Ben and his vixen wife, at the young stranger's introduction
to their household, impressed the tale upon his recollection.
From his account, it appeared that my long-continued absence from
Lucy, during the time of my illness, was construed by her honest
but distrustful counsellor and friend into voluntary and cruel
desertion. The poor girl, to whom my early life was all a mystery
which she had never shared, and to whom much of my character
and conduct was consequently inexplicable, began soon to feel
convinced of the correctness of the old sailor's suspicions and
fears. She had already applied to my employer for information
concerning me; but he, who had heard of the pestilence to which
I was exposed, and fully believed me to be among the dead, forbore
to distress her by a communication of his belief, and replied
to her questionings with an obscurity which served to give new
force to her hitherto vague and uncertain surmises. She positively
refused, however, to leave our home; and, clinging to the
hope of my final return thither, remained where I had left her
until the terrible fever began its ravages. Her small stock of
money was by this time consumed; her strength both of mind and
body gave way; and Ben, becoming every day more confident that
the simple-hearted Lucy had been betrayed and forsaken, persuaded
her at last to sell her furniture, and with the sum thus
raised flee the infected country before it should be too late. She
sailed for Boston in the same vessel in which Ben shipped before

[figure description] Page 483.[end figure description]

the mast; and on reaching that port her humble protector took
her immediately to the only home he had to offer.

“There your mother's sad fate found a mournful termination, and
you, her infant child, were left to the mercy of the cruel woman,
who, but for her consciousness of guilt and her fear of its betrayal,
would doubtless have thrust you at once from the miserable shelter
her dwelling afforded. This guilt consisted in a foul robbery committed
by Nan and her already infamous son upon your innocent
and hapless mother, now rendered, through her feebleness, an easy
prey to their rapacity. The fruits of this vile theft, however, were
never participated in by Nan, whose promising son so far exceeded
her in duplicity and craft, that, having obtained possession of the
jewels for the alleged purpose of bartering them away, he reserved
such as he thought proper, and appropriated to his own use the
proceeds of the remainder.

“The antique ring which I now hold in my possession, the priceless
relic of a mournful tragedy, would have shared the fate of
the rest, but for its apparent worthlessness. To the luckless Stephen,
however, it proved at last a temporary salvation from the
felon's doom which must finally await that hardened sinner; and
to me—ah! to me—it remains to be proved whether the knowledge
of the secrets to which it has been the key will bless my
future life, or darken it with a heavier curse! Notwithstanding
the information thus gained, and the exciting idea to which it gave
rise, that my child might be still living and finally restored to me,
I could not yet feel any security that these daring hopes were not
destined to be crushed in their infancy, and that my newly-found
treasure might not again elude my eager search. To my inquiries
concerning you, Gertrude, Stephen, who had no longer any motives
for concealing the truth, declared his inability to acquaint me with
any particulars of a later period than the time of your residence
with Trueman Flint. He knew that the lamplighter had taken
you to his home, and was accidentally made aware, a few months
later, of your continuance in that place of refuge, from the old
man's being (to use my informant's expression) such a confounded
fool as to call upon his mother and voluntarily make compensation

[figure description] Page 484.[end figure description]

for injury done to her windows in your outburst of childish
revenge.

“Further than this I could learn nothing; but it was enough to
inspire all my energies, and fill me with one desire only,—the
recovery of my child. I hastened to Boston, had no difficulty in
tracing your benefactor, and, though he had been long since dead,
found many a truthful witness to his well-known virtues. Nor,
when I asked for his adopted child, did I find her forgotten in the
quarter of the city where she had passed her childhood. More
than one grateful voice was ready to respond to my questioning,
and to proclaim the cause they had to remember the girl who,
having experienced the trials of poverty, made it both the duty
and the pleasure of her prosperity to administer to the wants of a
neighborhood whose sufferings she had aforetime both witnessed
and shared.

“But, alas! to complete the sum of sad vicissitudes with which
my unhappy destiny was already crowded, at the very moment
when I was assured of my daughter's safety, and my ears were
drinking in the sweet praises that accompanied the mention of her
name, there fell upon me like a thunder-bolt the startling words,
`She is now the adopted child of sweet Emily Graham, the blind
girl.'

“O, strange coincidence! O, righteous retribution! which, at the
very moment when I was picturing to myself the consummation of
my cherished hopes, crushed me once more beneath the iron hand
of a destiny that would not be cheated of its victim!

“My child, my only child,-bound by the gratitude and love of
years to one in whose face I scarcely dared to look, lest my soul
should be withered by the expression of condemnation which the
consciousness of my presence would inspire!

“The seas and lands, which had hitherto divided us, seemed not
to my tortured fancy so insurmountable a barrier between myself
and my long-lost daughter, as the dreadful reflection that the only
earthly being whose love I had hoped in time to win had been
reared from her infancy in a household where my very name was
a thing abhorred.

“Stung to the quick by the harrowing thought that all my

[figure description] Page 485.[end figure description]

prayers, entreaties and explanations, could never undo her early impressions,
and that all my labors and all my love could never call
forth other than a cold and formal recognition of my claims, or,
worse still, a feigned and hypocritical pretence of filial affection, I
half resolved to leave my child in ignorance of her birth, and
never seek to look upon her face, rather than subject her to the
terrible necessity of choosing between the friend whom she loved
and the father from whose crimes she had learned to shrink with
horror and dread.

“After wrestling and struggling long with contending and
warring emotions, I resolved to make one endeavor to see and
recognize you, Gertrude, and at the same time guard myself from
discovery. I trusted (and, as it proved, not without reason) to
the immense change which time had wrought in my appearance,
to conceal me effectually from all eyes but those which had known
me intimately; and therefore approached Mr. Graham's house
without the slightest fear of betrayal. I found it empty, and
apparently deserted.

“I now directed my steps to the well-remembered counting-room,
and here learned, from a clerk (who was, as it proved, but illinformed
concerning the movements of his master's family), that
the whole household, including yourself, had been passing the
winter in Paris, and were at present at a German watering-place.
Without hesitation, or further inquiry, I took the steamer to
Liverpool, and from thence hastened to Baden-Baden,—a trifling
excursion in the eyes of a traveller of my experience.

“Without risking myself in the presence of my step-father, I took
an early opportunity to obtain an introduction to Mrs. Graham,
and, thanks to her unreserved conversation, made myself master of
the fact that Emily and yourself were left in Boston, and were, at
that time, under the care of Dr. Jeremy.

“It was on my return voyage, which was immediately undertaken,
that I made the acquaintance of Dr. Gryseworth and his
daughter,—an acquaintance which accidentally proved of great
value in facilitating my intercourse with yourself.

“Once more arrived in Boston, Dr. Jeremy's house also wore a
desolate appearance, and looked as if closed for the season. There

[figure description] Page 486.[end figure description]

was a man, however, making some repairs about the door-steps, who
informed me that the family were absent from town. He was
not himself aware of the direction they had taken; but the servants
were at home, and could, no doubt, acquaint me with their
route. Upon this, I boldly rung the door-bell. It was answered
by Mrs. Ellis, the woman who, nearly twenty years before, had
cruelly and unpityingly sounded in my ears the death-knell of all
my hopes in life. I saw at once that my incognito was secure, as
she met my keen and piercing glance without quailing, shrinking
or taking flight, as I fully expected she would do at sight of the
ghost of my former self.

“She replied to my queries as coolly and collectedly as she had
probably done during the day to some dozen of the doctor's disappointed
patients,—telling me that he had left that very morning
for New York, and would not be back for two or three weeks.

“Nothing could have been more favorable to my wishes than the
chance thus afforded of overtaking your party, and, in the character
of a travelling companion, introducing myself gradually to
your notice.

“You know how this purpose was effected; how, now in the
rear and now in advance, I nevertheless maintained a constant
proximity to your footsteps. To add one particle to the comfort
of yourself and Emily,—to learn your plans, forestall your wishes,
secure to your use the best of rooms, and bribe to your service the
most devoted of attendants,—I spared myself neither pains,
fatigue, trouble, nor expense.

“For much of the freedom with which I approached you, and
made myself an occasional member of your circle, I was indebted
to Emily's blindness; for I could not doubt that otherwise time
and its changes would fail to conceal from her my identity, and
I should meet with a premature recognition. Nor, until the final
act of the drama, when death stared us all in the face, and
concealment became impossible, did I once trust my voice to her
hearing.

“How closely, during those few weeks, I watched and weighed
your every word and action, seeking even to read your thoughts
in your face, none can tell whose acuteness is not sharpened and

[figure description] Page 487.[end figure description]

vivified by motives so all-engrossing as mine; and who can measure
the anguish of the found father, who, day by day, learned to worship
his child with a more absorbing idolatry, and yet dared not
clasp her to his heart!

“Especially when I saw you the victim of grief and trouble
did I long to assert a claim to your confidence; and more than
once my self-control would have given way, but for the dread
inspired by the gentle Emily—gentle to all but me. I could not
brook the thought that with my confession I should cease to be
the trusted friend, and become the abhorred parent. I preferred to
maintain my distant and unacknowledged guardianship of my child,
rather than that she should behold in me the dreaded tyrant who
might tear her from the home from which he had himself been
driven, and the hearts which, though warm with love for her, were
ice and stone to him.

“And so I kept silent; and, sometimes present to your sight,
but still oftener hid from view, I hovered around your path, until
that dreadful day, which you will long remember, when, everything
forgotten but the safety of yourself and Emily, my heart spoke
out, and betrayed my secret.

“And now you know all,—my follies, misfortunes, sufferings
and sins!

“Can you love me, Gertrude? It is all I ask. I seek not to
steal you from your present home—to rob poor Emily of a child
whom she values perhaps as much as I. The only balm my
wounded spirit seeks is the simple, guileless confession that you
will at least try to love your father.

“I have no hope in this world, and none, alas! beyond, but in
yourself. Could you feel my heart now beating against its prisonbars,
you would realize, as I do, that unless soothed it will burst
ere long. Will you soothe it by your pity, my sweet, my darling
child? Will you bless it by your love? If so, come, clasp your
arms around me, and whisper to me words of peace. Within
sight of your window, in the old summer-house at the end of the
garden, with straining ear, I wait listening for your footsteps.”

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