Bart Ridgeley: A Story of Northern OhioRiddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin)
General
Bart Ridgeley: A Story of Northern Ohio
Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin)
Ohio -- Fiction
Julia pointed out the bird's nest under the roof, and to a faded
garland of flowers, hung upon the rough bark of the old hemlock,
against which Barton had reclined, and another upon the rock just over
where she had rested. In some way these brought to Bart's mind the
flowers on Henry's grave; and in a moment he felt that her hand had
placed them there; the precious little hand that lay so willingly in
his own. Raising it to his lips, he said: "Julia, this same blessed
hand has strewn my poor dear brother's grave with flowers."
"Are you glad, Arthur?"
"Oh, so glad, and grateful! And the same hand wrote me the generous
warning against that wretched Greer?"
"Yes, Arthur. Father came home from that first trial distressed about
you, and I wrote it. I thought you would not know the hand."
"I did not--though when your letter came to me in Jefferson, the
address reminded me of it. But I did not think you wrote it. And when
rumors were abroad of my connection with these men, after I went
to Albany, who was it who sent somebody to Ravenna, to get a
contradiction from Greer, himself?"
"No one sent anybody: some one went," in the lowest little voice.
"Oh, Julia! did you go, yourself?"
"Yes."
"With the love of such a woman, what may not a man do?" cried Bart,
with enthusiasm. "Julia, I suspect more--that I owe all and everything
to you."
"You saved my life, Arthur, and will you not take little things from
me?"
"I owe you for all the love and happiness of all my future, Julia, and
for the stimulus that has made me work these three years. You love
me; and love takes from love, and gives all it can and has, and is
content."
"Bless you, Arthur!" and affecting to notice the passage of the sun
towards the meridian--she turned to him a little anxiously--"What time
is it, Arthur?"--as if she cared! He told her, and she extended her
hand and took the watch, and toyed with it a moment; "it is a pretty
watch, open it, please," which he did. Looking at it intently, with
heightened color, she pointed with the rosy tip of a finger, to an
almost hidden inscription, which Bart had never seen before, and which
he saw were letters spelling "Julia." He started up amazed, and for
the moment trembled.
"Oh, Julia! all that I have and am, the food I have eaten, the clothes
I wear, all came from you! Old Windsor is a fraud--an instrument--and
I have carried your blessed name these long months, not knowing it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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