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Show 106 UNCLE 'rO~J'S C1\DI:-f: Ort, "Perhaps so i but that doesn't make it any easier to bear," said he, with a dry, hard, tenrlcss manner, as he turned away. "Pa.pa, you break my heart! " said Ent, rising and throwing herself into his arms; '(you must not feel so! n ant.l the child sobbed and wept with a violence wl1ich alarmed them all, and turned her father's thoughts at once to another channel. "There, Era,- ihcro, dearest ! Hush! hush ! I was wrong; I was wicked. I will feel any way, do any way,only don't distress yourself; don't sob so. I will be resigned; I was wicked to speak as I did." Eva soon lay like a wearied dove in her fi1thcr's arms; and he, bending over her, soothed her by C\'Cry tender word he could think of. Marie rose and threw herself out of the apartment into her own, when she fell into violent hysterics. "You didn't give me a curl, Eva," said. her father, smiling sadly. "~rhcy arc all yours, papa/' said she, smiling,- "yours and mamma's; and you must gi,rc dear aunty as many as sho wants. I only gave them to our poor people myself, because you know, papa, they might be forgotten when I am gone, and because I hoped it might help them remember. . . . You arc a Christian, arc you not, papa 1 " said Eva, Uoubtfully. "Why do you ask mc1" "I don't know. You arc so good, I don't see how you can help it." ': 'Vhat is being a Christian, Eva 1" "Loving Christ most of all," said Eva. " Do you, Eva? " LirE A?llOXG 'l'HE: LOWI,Y. 107 "Certainly I do." "You never saw him," said St. Clare. "That makes no difference," said Eva. "I believe him, and in a few days I shaH sec him;" and the young face grew fervent, radiant with joy. St. Clare said no more. It was a feeling which he had seen before in his mother; but no chord within vibr::tted to it. Eva, after this, declined rapidly; there was no more any doubt of the C\"Cnt; the fondest hope could not bo blinded. Her beautiful room was avowedly a sick room i anU Miss Ophelia day and night performed the duties of a nursc,-and never did her friends appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well-trained a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in every art which could promote neatness aml comfort, and. keep out of sight every llisagreea. ble incident of sickness,- with such a. perfect sense of time, such a. clear, untroubled head, such exact accuracy in remembering every prescription and direction of the doctors,she was everything to him. 1'hey who had shrugged their shoulders at her little peculiarities and setncsses, so unlike the careless freedom of southern manners, acknowledged that now she was the exact person that was wanted. Uncle ~rom was much in Eva's room. ~.l_lhc child suffered much from nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be carried; and it was '.rom's greatest delight to carry her little frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and down her room, n2w out into the verandah; and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from the lake,- and the child felt freshest in the rnorning,-he would sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in the garden, or, sitting down in some of their old scats, sing to her their fiworitc old hymns. |