Fare thee well!"
He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled
tears and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he
started up and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling
rain. The father and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had
heard every word that was spoken, and felt that a spirit whose
utterances he dared not question had visited Asenath's tongue.
She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience
which give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart
grew dull and transient; but there were two pictures in her memory
which never blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of
autumn flowers under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream
making accordant music to the new voice of love; the other a rainy
street, with a lost, reckless man leaning against an awning-post,
and staring in her face with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she
dared to recall it, darkened the beauty of the earth, and almost
shook her trust in the providence of God.
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