bought firing and provisions; everything The sick man offered no resistance; in- "Don't take it from me," he said, pitifully. "It's the only comfort I have." But when he found himself in the cheer- "O Elizabeth, I'm so comfortable!" shook his pillow, and covered him up as if he had been a child. "You're very good to me," he said, and looked up at her-Tom's bright, fond look of years ago. But it passed away in a moment, and he closed his eyes saying he was so terribly tired. "Then I'll bid you good-by, for I ought to have been at home by now. You'll take care of yourself, Tom, and I'll come and see you again the very first hour I can be spared. And if you want me you'll send to me at once? You know where?" "I will," said Tom. "It's the same house, isn't it, in Russell Square?" "Yes." And they were both silent. After a minute, Tom asked, in a troubled voice, "Have you forgiven me ?" "Yes, Tom, quite." "Wont you give me one kiss, Eliza?" Whether the wholesome food and drink revived him, or whether it was one of the sudden flashes of life that often occur in consumptive patients, but he seemed really bet-beth ter, and began to talk, telling Elizabeth She turned away. She did not mean to about his long illness, and saying over be hard, but somehow she could not kiss again how very kind the druggist's young Esther's husband. man had been to him. "I'm sure he's a gentleman, though he has come down in the world; for, as he says, 'misery makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows, and takes the nonsense out of him.' I think so too, and if ever I get better, I don't mean to go about the country speaking against born gentle-folks any more. They're much of a muchness as ourselves-bad and good; a little of all sorts; the same flesh and blood as we are. Aren't they, Elizabeth ? " “I suppose so.” "And there's another thing I mean to do. I mean to try and be good like you. Many a night when I've lain on that straw, and thought I was dying, I've remembered you and all the things you used to say to me. You are a good woman; there never was a better." Elizabeth smiled, a faint, rather sad smile. For, as she was washing up the tea things, she had noticed Tom's voice grow feebler, and his features sharper and more wan. "Ah, well; it's all the same! Good by!" "Good-by, Tom." But as she stood at the door, and looked back at him lying with his eyes shut, and as white as if he were dead, Elizabeth's heart melted. He was her Tom, her own Tom, of whom she had been so fond, so proud; whose future she had joyfully anticipated long before she thought of herself as mixed up with it; and he was dying, dying at fourand-twenty; passing away to the other world, where, perhaps, she might meet him yet, with no cruel Esther between. "Tom," she said, and knelt beside him, "Tom, I didn't mean to vex you. I'll try to be as good as a sister to you. I'll never forsake you as long as you live." "I know you never will." "Good-by, then, for to-night." And she did kiss him, mouth to mouth, quietly and tenderly. She was so glad of it afterward. It was late enough when she reached Russell Square; but nobody ever questioned the proceedings of Mrs. Hand, who was a privileged person. She crept in beside her little Henry, and as the child turned in his sleep Elizabeth helped him to the small pallet, and put his arms about her neck, she clasped "I'm very tired," he said. "I'm afraid to go to bed, I get such wretched nights; but I think, if I lay down in my clothes, I could go to sleep." him tight, and thought there was still something to live for in this weary world. All night she thought over what best could be done for Tom. Though she never deceived herself for a moment as to his state, still she thought, with care and proper nursing, he might live a few months. Especially if she could get him into the Consumption Hospital, newly started in Chelsea, of which she was aware Mr. Ascott-who dearly liked to see his name in a charity-list was one of the governors. There was no time to be lost; she determined to speak to her master at once. The time she chose was when she brought down little Henry, who was now always expected to appear, and say, "Dood-morning, papa," before Mr. Ascott went into the city. "Oh, don't trouble yourself about the name; I shouldn't recollect it. The housekeeper might. Why didn't his wife apply to the housekeeper ? " The careless question seemed hardly to expect an answer, and Elizabeth gave none. She could not bear to make public Tom's misery and Esther's shame. "And you say he is a Stowbury man ? That is certainly a claim. I always feel bound, somewhat as a member of Parliament might be, to do my best for any one belonging to my native town. So be satisfied, Mrs. Hand; consider the thing settled." And he was going away; but time being of such great moment, Elizabeth ventured to detain him till he had written the letter of recommendation, and found out what days the application for admission could be received. He did it very patiently, and even took out his purse and laid a sovereign on the top of the letter. suppose the man is poor; you can use this for his benefit." As they stood, the boy laughing in his father's face, and the father beaming all over with delight, the bitter, almost fierce thought, smote Elizabeth, Why should Peter Ascott be standing there fat and flourishing, and poor Tom dying? It made her bold to ask "There is no need, thank you, sir," said the only favor she ever had asked of the mas-Elizabeth, putting it gently aside. She could ter whom she did not care for, and to whom not bear that Tom should accept anybody's she had done her duty simply as duty, with- money but her own. out, until lately, one fragment of respect. "Sir, if you please, might I speak with you a minute before you go out ?" Certainly, Mrs. Hand. Anything about Master Henry? Or perhaps yourself? You want more wages? Very well. I shall be glad, in any reasonable way, to show my satisfaction at the manner in which you bring up my son." "Thank you, sir," said Elizabeth, courtesying. "But it is not that." And in the briefest language she could find, she explained what it was. Mr. Ascott knitted his brows and looked important. He never scattered his benefits with a silent hand, and he dearly liked to create difficulties, if only to show how he could smooth them down. At her first spare moment she wrote him a long letter explaining what she had done, and appointing the next day but one, the earliest possible, for taking him out to Chelsea herself. If he objected to the plan he was to write and say so; but she urged him as strongly as she could not to let slip this opportunity of obtaining good nursing and firstrate medical care. Many times during the day the thought of Tom alone in his one room-comfortable though it was, and though she had begged the landlady to see that he wanted nothing -came across her with a sudden pang. His face, feebly lifted up from the pillow, with its last affectionate smile, the sound of his cough as she stood listening outside on the stair-head, haunted her all through that sunshiny June day; and mingled with it, came ghostly visions of that other day in Juneher happy Whitsun holiday -- her first and her last. To get a patient admitted to the Consumption Hospital is, you should be aware, no easy matter, until the building at Queen's Elm is complete. But 1 flatter myself I have influence. I have subscribed a deal of No letter coming from Tom on the apmoney. Possibly the person may be got in pointed morning, she left Master Harry in in time. Who did you say he was ?" the charge of the housemaid, who was very "Thomas Cliffe. He married one of the fond of him- -as indeed he bade fair to be servants here, Estherspoiled by the whole establishment at Rus sell Square — and went down to Westmin- fellow, how she had listened at his door sev ster. eral times during the first day, and heard There was a long day before her, so she him cough, that is, she thought she had, but took a minute's breathing space on West- toward night all was so very quiet; and minster Bridge, and watched the great cur- there having come a letter by post, she rent of London life ebbing and flowing-thought she would take it up to him. life on the river and life on the shore; everybody so busy and active and bright. "Poor Tom, poor Tom!" she sighed, and wondered whether his ruined life would ever come to any happy ending, except death. She hurried on, and soon found the street where she had taken his lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, a public house, about which more than the usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group of twelve men, coming out. "And I went in, gentlemen, and I declare, upon my oath, I found him lying just as he is now, and as cold as a stone." "Let me pass; I'm a doctor," said somebody behind; a young man, very shabbily dressed, with a large beard. He pushed aside the landlady and Elizabeth, till he saw the latter's face. "Give that young woman a chair and a glass of water, will you?" he called out; and his authoritative manner impressed the jurymen, who gathered round him ready and eager to hear anything he could say. He gave his name as John Smith, druggist's assistant; said that the young man who "What is that ?" asked Elizabeth. "Coroner's inquest; jury proceeding to lodged up-stairs, whose death he had only view the body." Elizabeth, who had never come into contact with anything of the sort, stood aside with a sense of awe, to let the little procession pass, and then followed it up the street. It stopped; oh, no! not at that door! But it was; there was no mistaking the number, nor the drawn-down blind in the upper room -Tom's room. "Who is dead?" she asked, in a whisper that made the policeman stare. "Oh! nobody particular; a young man, found dead in his bed; supposed to be a case of consumption; verdict will probably be, 'Died by the visitation of God."" Ay, that familiar phrase, our English law's solemn recognition of our national religious feeling, was true here. God had "visited" poor Tom; he suffered no more. Elizabeth leaned against the door-way, and saw the twelve jurymen go up-stairs with a clatter of feet, and come down again, one after the other, less noisily, and some of them looking grave. Nobody took any notice of her, until the lodging-house inistress appeared. "Oh, here she is, gentlemen. This is the young woman as saw him last alive. She'll tell you I'm not a bit to blame." And pulling Elizabeth after her the landlady burst into a torrent of explanation; how she had done her very best for the poor just heard of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God; " took pipes and brandy all round at the bar, and then adjourned to their several homes, gratified at having done their duty to their country. Meantime, Elizabeth crept up-stairs. Nobody hindered or followed her; nobody cared anything for the solitary dead. There he lay-poor Tom !—almost as she had left him; the counterpane was hardly disturbed, the candle she had placed on the chair had burned down to a bit of wick, which still lay in the socket. Nobody had touched him, or anything about him, as, in all cases of "Found dead," English law ex acts. Whether he had died soon after she quitted him that night, or whether he had lingered through the long hours of darkness, or of daylight following, alive and conscious perhaps, yet too weak to call any one, even had there been any one he cared to call when, or how, the spirit had passed away Mr. Ascott seemed a good deal shocked, unto Him who gave it, were mysteries that could never be known. But it was all over now; he lay at rest with the death smile on his face. Elizabeth, as she stood and looked at him, could not, dared not weep. "My poor Tom, my own dear Tom,” was all she thought, and knew that he was all her own now; that she had loved him through everything, and loved him to the end. CHAPTER XXVIII. ELIZABETH spent the greatest part of her holiday in that house, in that room. Nobody interfered with her; nobody asked in what relation she stood to the deceased, or what right she had to take upon herself the arrangements for his funeral. Everybody was only too glad to let her assume a responsibility, which would otherwise have fallen on the parish. inquired from her a few particulars, and again took out his purse, his one panacea for all mortal woes, But Elizabeth declined; she said she would only ask him for an advance of her next half-year's wages. She preferred burying her old friend herself. She buried him, herself the only mourner, on a bright summer's day, with the sun shining dazzlingly on the white gravestones in Kensal Green. The clergyman appeared, read the service, and went away again. A few minutes ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also departed, she sat down on a bench near to watch the sexton filling up the grave-Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely observant person watching her face could have penetrated into the truth of what your impulsive characters, always in the extremes of mirth or misery, never understand about quiet people, that "still waters run deep." While she sat there some one came past The only person who appeared to remem- her, and turned round. It was the shabbyber either her or the dead man was the drug-looking chemist's assistant, who had apgist's assistant, who sent in the necessary peared at the inquest and given the satismedical certificate as to the cause of death. factory evidence which had prevented the Elizabeth took it to the Registrar, and necessity of her giving hers. thence proceeded to an undertaker hard by, with whom she arranged all about the funeral, and that it should take place in the new cemetery at Kensal Green. She thought she should like that better than a close, noisy London churchyard. Before she left the house she saw poor Tom laid in his coffin, and covered up forever from mortal eyes. Then, and not till then, she sat herself down beside him and wept. Nobody contested with her the possession of the few things that had belonged to him, which were scarcely more than the clothes he had on when he died; so she made them up into a parcel and took them away with her. In his waistcoat-pocket she found one book, a little Testament, which she had given him herself. It looked as if it had been a good deal read. If all his studies, all his worship of "pure intellect," as the one supreme good, had ended in that it was a blessed ending. When she reached home Elizabeth went at once to her master, returned him his letter of recommendation, and explained to him that his kindness was not needed now. Elizabeth rose and acknowledged him with a respectful courtesy; for under his threadbare clothes was the bearing of a gentleman, and he had been so kind to Tom. "I am too late," he said; "the funeral is over. I meant to have attended it, and seen the last of the poor fellow." "Thank you, sir," replied Elizabeth, gratefully. The young man stood before her, looking at her earnestly for a minute or two, and then exclaimed, with a complete change of voice and manner,— "Elizabeth! don't you know me ? What has become of my Aunt Johanna ? ” It was Ascott Leaf. But no wonder Elizabeth had not recognized him. His close-cropped hair, his large beard hiding half his face, and a pair of spectacles which he had assumed, were a sufficient disguise. Besides, the great change from his former "dandy" appearance to the extreme of shabbiness; his clothes being. evidently worn as long as they could possibly hold together, and his generally depressed air giving the effect of one who had gone down in the world, made him, even without the misleading "John Smith," most unlikely to be identified with the Ascott Leaf of old. "I never should have known you, sir!" said Elizabeth, truthfully, when her astonishment had a little subsided; "but I am very glad to see you. Oh, how thankful your aunts will be!" "Do you think so? I thought it was quite the contrary. But it does not matter; they will never hear of me, unless you tell them and I believe I may trust you. You would not betray me, if only for the sake of that poor fellow yonder? "No, sir." "Now, tell me something about my aunts, especially my Aunt Johanna." "Elizabeth, what relation was Tom to you? If I had known you were acquainted with him I should have been afraid to go near him; but I felt sure, though he came from Stowbury, he did not guess who I was; he only knew me as Mr. Smith; and he never once mentioned you. Was he your cousin, or what?" Elizabeth considered a moment, and then told the simple fact; it could not matter now. "I was once going to be married to him, but he saw somebody he liked better, and married her." "Poor girl; poor Elizabeth!" Perhaps nothing could have shown the great change in Ascott more than the tone in which he uttered these words; a tone of And sitting down in the sunshine, with his entire respect and kindly pity, from which arm upon the back of the bench, and his he never once departed during that converhand hiding his eyes, the poor prodigal lis-sation, and many, many others, so long as tened in silence to everything Elizabeth told him; of his Aunt Selina's marriage and death, and of Mr. Lyon's return, and of the happy home at Liverpool. 66 They are all quite happy, then?" said he, at length; "they seem to have begun to prosper ever since they got rid of me. Well, I'm glad of it. I only wanted to hear of them from you. I shall never trouble them any more. You'll keep my secret, I know. And now I must go, for I have not a minute more to spare. Good-by, Elizabeth." With a humility and friendliness, strange enough in Ascott Leaf, he held out his hand -empty, for he had nothing to give now to his aunt's old servant. But Elizabeth detained him. "Don't go, sir; please, don't; not just yet." And then she added, with an earnest respectfulness that touched the heart of the poor, shabby man, "I hope you'll pardon the liberty I take. I'm only a servant, but I knew you when you were a boy, Mr. Leaf; and if you would trust me, if you would let me be of use to you in any way-if only because you were so good to him there." "Poor Tom Cliffe; he was not a bad fellow; he liked me rather, I think; and I was able to doctor him, and help him a little. Heigh-ho; it's a comfort to think I ever did any good to anybody." Ascott sighed, drew his rusty coat-sleeve across his eyes, and sat contemplating his boots, which were anything but dandy boots now. THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 962. their confidential relations lasted. "Now, sir, would you be so kind as to tell me something about yourself? I'll not repeat anything to your aunts, if you don't wish it." Ascott yielded. He had been so long, so utterly forlorn. He sat down beside Elizabeth, and then, with eyes often averted, and with many breaks between, which she had to fill up as best she could, he told her all his story, even to the sad secret of all, which had caused him to run away from home, and hide himself in the last place where they would have thought he was, the safe wilderness of London. There, carefully disguised, he had lived decently while his money lasted, and then, driven step by step to the brink of destitution, he had offered himself for employment in the lowest grade of his own profession, and been taken as assistant by the not overscrupulous chemist and druggist in that not too respectable neighborhood of Westminster, with a salary of twenty pounds a year. "And I actually live upon it!" added he, with a bitter smile. "I can't run into debt; for who would trust me? And I dress in rags almost, as you see. And I get my meals how and where I can; and I sleep under the shop-counter. A pretty life for Mr. Ascott Leaf, isn't it now? What would my aunts say if they knew it ? " "They would say it was an honest life, and that they were not a bit ashamed of you." |