ck. I
loved her so, and I thought then that a few months would bring her back!
See, here is her bible. She never used to read it, but she prized it
because it was her mother's. I have placed it on the pillow where she
will see it when she comes to lay her poor tired head down to rest." And
with a reverent hand the aged matron drew the curtains back from the
open bed, and disclosed the little bible lying thick with dust in the
centre of the nearest pillow.

"O who was this you loved so well? And why did she leave you?" cried
Paula with the tears in her eyes, at sight of this humble token.

The aged lady seized her hand and hurried her back into the room below.
"I will tell you where I have waited and watched so long. Only be
patient till I light the lamp. It is getting late and any chance
wanderer going by and seeing all dark, might think I had forgotten my
promise and was not here."

XXV.

JACQUELINE.

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,
And love as scarce deserves the name,
But mine is like the lava flood
That burns in Etna's breast of flame."

--BYRON.

"There are some men that have the appearance of being devoid of family
affection, who in reality cherish it in the deepest and most passionate
degree. Such a man was Colonel Japha. You have doubtless heard from your
cradle what the neighbors thought of this stately, old fashioned
gentleman. He was too handsome in his youth, too proudly reticent in his
manhood, too self-contained and unrelenting in his age, not to be the
talk of any town that numbered him among its inhabitants. But only from
myself, a relative of the family and his housekeeper for years, can you
learn with what undeviating faith and love he clung to the few upon whom
he allowed his heart to fasten in affection. When he married Miss Carey,
the world said, 'He has chosen a beauty, because fine manners and a
pretty face look well behind the Japha coffee-urn!' But we, that is,
this same young wife and myself, knew that in marrying her he had taken
unto himself his other half, the one sweet woman for whom his proud
heart could beat and before whom his stately head could bow. When she
died, the world exclaimed, 'He will soon fill her place!' But I who
watched the last look that passed between them in the valley of the
shadow of that death, knew that the years would come and the years would
go without seeing Colonel Japha marry again.

"The little babe whom she left