here to-day?"
"It is past that, sir--past that," was replied. "There is no further
any hope for me in the physician's art."
A sob choked all further utterance.
How oppressed was the cold-hearted, selfish man of the world! His
thoughts were all clouded, and his lips for a time sealed. As the
dying woman said, so he felt that it was. The time of her departure
had come. An instinct of self-protection--protection for his
feelings--caused him, after a few moments, to say, and he turned
partly from the bed as he spoke--
"Some of your friends should be with you, madam, at this time. Let me
go for them. Have you a sister or near relative in the city?"
The words and movement of Mr. Jasper restored at once the conscious
self-possession of the dying mother, and she raised herself partly up
with a quick motion, and a gleam of light in her countenance.
"Oh, sir," she said eagerly, "do not go yet. I have no sister, no near
relative; none but you to whom I can speak my last words and give my
last injunction. You were my husband's friend while he lived, and to
you has he committed the care of his widow and orphan. I am called,
alas, too soon! to follow him; and now, in the sight of God, and
in the presence of his spirit--for I feel that he is near us now--I
commit to you the care of this dear child. Oh, sir! be to her as a
father. Love her tenderly, and care for her as if she were your own.
Her heart is rich with affection, and upon you will its treasures be
poured out. Take her! take her as your own! Here I give to you, in
this the solemn hour of my departure, that which to me is above all
price."
And as she said this, with a suddenly renewed strength, she lifted
the child, and, ere Jasper could check the movement, placed her in his
arms. Then, with one long, eager, clinging kiss pressed upon the
lips of that child, she sank backward on the bed; and life, which had
flashed up brightly for a moment, went out in this world for ever.
CHAPTER III.
Leonard Jasper would have been less than human had he borne such an
assault upon his feelings without emotion; less than human had his
heart instantly and spontaneously rejected the dying mother's wildly
eloquent appeal. He was bewildered, startled, even deeply moved.
The moment he could, with propriety and a decent regard for
appearances, get away from the house where he had witnessed so painful
a scene, he returned to his place of business in a sobered, thoughtful
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