Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
He had taken, half unconsciously, the direction of the cemetery, and now
found himself at the entrance. The gate was locked, but he climbed over
the wall and waded through the snow to the spot where he had sat with
her so many summer afternoons. The wicker chair was buried out of sight
in a drift. A scarcely-visible undulation in the white level marked the
position of the mound, and the headstone had a snow-cap. The cedars
stood black in the dim moonlight, and the icy coating of their boughs
rattled like candelabra. He stood a few moments near the railing, and
then tore the letter into fragments and threw them on the snow. "There!
good-bye, good-bye!" he said bitterly as the wind carried them skating
away over the crust.
But what was that? The moon cast a shadow of Henry Pinckney's headstone
on the snow, but what was that other and similar shadow beyond it?
Putnam had been standing edgewise to the slab: he shifted his position
now and saw a second stone and a second mound side by side with the
first. An awful faintness and trembling seized him as he approached it
and bent his head close down to the marble. The jagged shadows of the
cedar-branches played across the surface, but by the uncertain light he
could read the name "Imogen Pinckney," and below it the inscription,
"Wir hoffen auf Wiedersehen."
HENRY A. BEERS.
STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.
VI.--JAN OF THE NORTH.
"You're wanted at 248, and they said go quick. It's Brita, I shouldn't
wonder. Lord pity her, but it's a wild night to go out! Seems like as if
the Lord would have hard work to find anybody, with the rain an' sleet
pourin' an' drivin' so't you can't see a foot before your face. But He
will."
"Yes, He will," the doctor's quiet voice answered. "Poor little Brita! I
am glad her trouble is almost over. Will you come? Remember how dreadful
the place is."
"More so for me than for you?"
"Surely, for I have been in the midst of such for twenty years, and
among them all have never known a worse den than that in which these
poor souls are stranded. If I could only see a way out for them!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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