omfort from this, and
finally put her request in a different shape. Would I permit her to sit
in a chair near the door of the room in which Pulaski lay, until such
time as she could see him? 'I will give you no trouble whatever,' she
said. 'I am determined to see him,' she declared; 'he is mine, and I am
his.' I gave a cordial assent to this proposition, carried a comfortable
chair and placed it near the door, and there she stationed herself.

"I went into the room where the others were, and was surprised to see
Fanny Tomlin looking so cheerful. Even Major Perdue appeared to be
relieved. Fanny asked me a question with her eyes, and I answered it
aloud. 'She is sitting by the door, and says she will remain there until
she can see Pulaski.' He beat his hand against the headboard of the bed,
his mental agony was so great, and kept murmuring to himself. Major
Perdue turned his back on his friend's writhings, and went to the
window. Presently he returned to the bedside, his watch in his hand.
'Pulaski,' he said, 'if she's there fifteen minutes from now, I shall
invite her in.' Pulaski Tomlin made no reply, and we continued our
ministrations in perfect silence.

"A few minutes later, I had occasion to go into my own room for a strip
of linen, and to my utter amazement, the chair I had placed for Margaret
Gaither was empty. Had she gone for a drink of water, or for a book? I
went from room to room, calling her name, but she had gone; and I have
never laid eyes on her from that day to this. She went away to Malvern
on a visit, and while there eloped with a Louisiana man named Bridalbin,
whose reputation was none too savoury, and we never heard of her again.
Even her Aunt Polly lost all trace of her."

"What did Mr. Tomlin say when you told him she was gone?" Nan inquired.

"We never told him. I think he understood that she was gone almost as
soon as she went, for his spiritual faculties are very keen. I remember
on one occasion, and that not so very long ago, when he refused to
retire at night, because he had a feeling that he would be called for;
and his intuitions were correct. He was summoned to the bedside of one
of his friends in the country, and, as he went along, he carried your
father with him. Margaret Gaither, such as she was, was the sum and the
substance of his first and last romance. He suffered, but his suffering
has made him strong.

"Yes," Mrs. Lumsden went on, "it has made him strong and great in the
highe