Self-Raised; Or, From the DepthsSouthworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
Self-Raised; Or, From the Depths
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Fiction
"I came here," said Ishmael frankly, "with no other purpose than to
be with you in your hour of trial. I knew that you would require the
presence of some friend."
"Ah, Ishmael! it was just like you to drop all your business and
come uncalled, traveling from Washington to New York, with the sole
object of sustaining an old friend in the hour of his weakness. So
that does not surprise me. But how did you hit the time so well?"
"I knew from Bee's last letter, dated from Tanglewood, the day that
Lord Vincent had positively determined to sail. I knew also the name
of the only steamer that sailed for Europe on that day. And so, as
Bee expressed great regret that her father could not accompany you
to New York, and great anxiety because you would be left quite alone
after the trial of parting with Claudia, I suddenly resolved to come
on. I came on by the same train that brought your party, although
not in the same car. I reached the city this morning, and finding
that the steamer was to sail at twelve, noon, I walked down to the
pier at half-past eleven so as to be ready to meet you when you
should come ashore."
"And you took all this thought and trouble for me? Oh, Ishmael,
Ishmael, what a sorrow and shame it is that you are not my son!"
"I am your son in reverence, and love, and service, sir; and if I am
not in any other way it is because the Lord has willed otherwise,"
said Ishmael very gravely.
"Did you see Claudia off?" inquired the judge.
"I saw the steamer; I did not see Lady Vincent. I was in the rear of
the crowd on the pier and looking out among them that I might not
miss you," replied Ishmael. But he did not add that he had
sedulously avoided looking at Claudia as she stood beside her
husband on the deck waving her handkerchief in adieus to her father.
In a few minutes Jim Morris came up with a comfortable carriage, and
the judge, somewhat recovered now, was assisted into it.
"You are coming too, Ishmael, are you not?" said the old man,
looking anxiously out of the window.
"Of course I am, sir; for with your permission I will not leave you
until we get back to Washington," replied the young man, preparing
to spring into the carriage. But suddenly pausing with his hand on
the door he inquired:
"Where shall I order the hackman to drive?"
The judge named his hotel, which happened to be the very one at
which Ishmael was stopping; and so the young man gave the order and
entered the carriage.
The professor climbed up to a seat beside the hackman, and the hack
moved on.
As the carriage turned into Broadway and rolled along that
magnificent street, the professor, from his elevated seat, gazed
with ever-increasing delight and admiration on the wonders of the
great city spread before him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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