scovered a whole group of memoranda and reflections in which the
name Tarrytown occurred again and again. I will read you the notes when I
come; without giving many events they tell in a disjointed way a little
idyllic episode in the story of his life. He, too, knew love, and was
loved. There in that village by the Hudson for a few short months he kept
the enemy at bay and was happy. And then, too soon, came the fatal
story--the only dated note in the book, I believe:

September 3d: A son was born and she has left me to care for him
alone. I had thought that happiness might endure, and this too was
illusion. I stand by the tomb and read the graven words: _Et ego in
Arcadia fui_.

And so, yesterday, on a venture I took our little goblin boy with me to
Tarrytown, and after some inquiry found that his mother's relations were
farm people living on the outskirts of the town. They proved to have been
poor but respectable people. At present only the grandfather is living
alone in the house, and he is very feeble. He was willing to assume the
care of Jack, but I cannot persuade myself to leave the child in those
trembling hands. Indeed, when it comes to the issue, I cannot quite decide
to let him go entirely from me, for is he not one of the ties that bind me
to you? I have brought him back with me to New York--which will only
increase your merriment at my expense.

Some day when you have come to live in New York--if this is to be our
home--we will go together up the river to Tarrytown, and you shall see the
land where O'Meara dreamed his dream of happiness and where your adopted
child was born.

And when we go there, I will take you to a bowered nook overhanging the
river, where I passed the afternoon reading and thinking of many things.
There together we will sit in the shadow of the trees and talk and plan
together how _our_ happiness, at least, shall be made to endure; and you
shall teach me to lose this haunting sense of illusion in the great
reality of love. And as the evening descends and twilight steals upon the
ever-flowing water, I will take you in my arms a moment, and this shall be
my vow: God do so to me and more also, if any darkness falls from my life
upon yours, until our evening, too, has come and the light of this world
passes quietly into the dream that lies beyond.

All this I thought yesterday while I sat alone and read once more the sad
record of O'Meara's ruin. He did not stay long in Tarrytow