"Oh, Grandpa, Grandpa! He is not altogether wicked and callous as we once thought him, or he could never have done this! Forgive your poor little Pearl, if she can not help loving one who, for her sake, honors your dear name and memory! Oh, Grandpa! if I had never gone away from here. If I could have died before I saw him again! before this great pain fell upon my heart!"
She knew now where St. Elmo Murray went that night, after he had watched her from behind the sarcophagus and the mummies; knew that only his hand could have erected this noble pillar of record; and most fully did she appreciate the delicate feeling which made him so proudly reticent on this subject. He wished no element of gratitude in the love he had endeavored to win, and scorned to take advantage of her devoted affection for her grandfather, by touching her heart with a knowledge of the tribute paid to his memory. Until this moment she had sternly refused to permit herself to believe all his protestations of love; had tried to think that he merely desired to make her acknowledge his power, and confess an affection flattering to his vanity. But to-day she felt that all he had avowed was true; that his proud, bitter heart was indeed entirely hers; that this assurance filled her own heart with a measureless joy, a rapture that made her eyes sparkle through their tears and brought a momentary glow to her cheeks. Hour after hour passed; she took no note of time, and sat there pondering her past life, thinking how the dusty heart deep under the marble would have throbbed with fond pride, if it could only have known what the world said of her writings. That she should prove competent to teach the neighbors' children had been Aaron Hunt's loftiest ambition for his darling; and now she was deemed worthy to speak to her race through the columns of a periodical that few women were considered able to fill.
She wondered if he were not really cognizant of it all; if he were not watching her struggles and her triumph; and she asked herself why he was not allowed, in token of tender sympathy, to drop one palm-leaf on her head, from the fadeless branch he waved in heaven?
"Oh! how far, How far and safe, God, dost thou keep thy saints When once gone from us! We may call against The lighted windows of thy fair June heaven Where all the souls are happy; and not one, Not even my father, look from work or play, To ask, 'Who is it that cries after us, Below there, in the dark?"