The evening was made pleasant with sacred music, and the fatigues of two long services repaired by such simple refections as would not turn the holy day into a day of labor.  A large paper copy of the new edition of Byles Gridley’s remarkable work was lying on the table.  He never looked so happy,—­could anything fill his cup fuller?  In the course of the evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which they had passed in common with vast numbers of their countrymen, and some of those peculiar dangers which Myrtle had had to encounter in the course of a life more eventful, and attended with more risks, perhaps, than most of them imagined.  But Myrtle, he said, had always been specially cared for.  He wished them to look upon the semblance of that protecting spirit who had been faithful to her in her gravest hours of trial and danger.  If they would follow him into one of the lesser apartments up stairs they would have an opportunity to do so.

Myrtle wondered a little, but followed with the rest.  They all ascended to the little projecting chamber, through the window of which her scarlet jacket caught the eyes of the boys paddling about on the river in those early days when Cyprian Eveleth gave it the name of the Fire-hang-bird’s Nest.

The light fell softly but clearly on the dim and faded canvas from which looked the saintly features of the martyred woman, whose continued presence with her descendants was the old family legend.  But underneath it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered object upon it.  It was a mysterious arrangement, made without any knowledge on her part.

“Now, then, Kitty!” Mr. Lindsay said.

Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward, and removed the cloth which concealed the unknown object.  It was a lifelike marble bust of Master Byles Gridley.

“And this is what you have been working at so long,—­is it, Clement?” Myrtle said.

“Which is the image of your protector, Myrtle?”, he answered, smiling.

Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust and kissed its marble forehead, saying, “This is the face of my Guardian Angel.” forehead, saying, “This is the face of my Guardian Angel.”

A MORTAL ANTIPATHY

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE.

“A mortal antipathy” was a truly hazardous experiment.  A very wise and very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature as he is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in referring to this story:  “I should have been afraid of my subject.”  He did not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt the improbability of the, physiological or pathological occurrence on which the story is founded to be so great that the narrative could hardly be rendered plausible.  I felt the difficulty for myself as well as for my readers, and it was only by recalling for our consideration a series of extraordinary but well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar character that I could hope to gain any serious attention to so strange a narrative.