“A daughter,” I says.

“No,” says Jemmy, “a son.  And the father was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight.  But a dark cloud overspread the scene.  Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died.”

“Ah!  Sickened, drooped, and died!” I says.

“And so Mr. Edson’s only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy.  As the child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture.  It used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him.  But unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, and lo, died too before he had grown out of childhood.  Then Mr. Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw them all to the winds.  He became apathetic, reckless, lost.  Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost lived (I think) by gaming.  And so sickness overtook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die.  But now that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her.  And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it fell; but at length she remembered him.  And then he told her, with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after all.  And because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words.”

Jemmy’s voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and filled the Major’s.

“You little Conjurer” I says, “how did you ever make it all out?  Go in and write it every word down, for it’s a wonder.”

Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing.

Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, “Dearest madam all has prospered with us.”

“Ah Major” I says drying my eyes, “we needn’t have been afraid.  We might have known it.  Treachery don’t come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy,—­they do, thank God!”

***End of the project gutenberg EBOOK Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy***

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