“Not any message this time either?” said Grace, when told that he had kissed her flowers, and that was all.

Still this was proof that he was pleased, and the infatuated woman persisted in preparing bouquets, which Edith daily carried to Collingwood, going always at the same time, and finding him always in the same spot waiting for her.  As yet no word had passed between them, for Edith, who liked the novelty of the affair, was so light-footed that she generally managed to slip the bouquet into his hand, and run away ere he had time to detain her.  One morning, however, near the middle of October, when, owing to a bruised heel, she had not been to see him for more than a week, he sat in his accustomed place, half-expecting her, and still thinking how improbable it was that she would come.  He had become strangely attached to the little unknown, as he termed her; he thought of her all the day long, and when, in the chilly evening, he sat before the glowing grate, listening to the monotonous whisperings of his father, he wished so much that she was there beside him.  His life would not be so dreary then, for in the society of that active, playful child, he should forget, in part, how miserable he was.  She was blue-eyed, and golden-haired, he thought, with soft, abundant curls veiling her sweet young face; and he pictured to himself just how she would look, flitting through the halls, and dancing upon the green sward near the door,

“But it cannot be,” he murmured on that October morning, when he sat alone in his wretchedness.  “Nothing I’ve wished for most has ever come to pass.  Sorrow has been my birthright from a boy.  A curse is resting upon our household, and all are doomed who come within its shadow.  First my own mother died just when I needed her the most, then that girlish woman whom I also called my mother; then, our darling Charlie.  My father’s reason followed next, while I am hopelessly blind.  Oh, sometimes I wish that I could die.”

“Hold your breath with all your might, and see if you can’t,” said the voice of Edith Hastings, who had approached him cautiously, and heard his sad soliloquy.

Richard started, and stretching out his long arm, caught the sleeve of the little girl, who, finding herself a captive, ceased to struggle, and seated herself beside him as he requested her to do.

“Be you holding your breath?” she asked, as for a moment he did not speak, adding as he made no answer, “Tell me when you’re dead, won’t you?”

Richard laughed aloud, a hearty, merry laugh, which startled himself, it was so like an echo of the past, ere his hopes were crushed by cruel misfortune.

“I do not care to die now that I have you,” he said; “and if you’d stay with me always, I should never be unhappy.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be jolly,” cried Edith, using her favorite expression, “I’d read to you, and sing to you, only Rachel says my songs are weird-like, and queer, and maybe you might not like them; but I’d fix your hair, and lead you in the smooth places where you wouldn’t jam your heels;” and she glanced ruefully at one of hers, bound up in a cotton rag.  “I wish I could come, but Mrs. Atherton won’t let me, I know.  She threatens most every day to send me back to the Asylum, ’cause I act so.  I’m her little waiting-maid, Edith Hastings.”