l, the worst was that I
had to lose my baby. But you are very good to her, Edmund, are you
not?"

Her eyes now filled with tears, and they began to fall slowly, one by
one, down over her cheeks.

"Yes, darling," he broke forth,--the impulse of tenderness now
overmastering all other thoughts. "And I will be good to you also,
Emily, if you will only let me."

He had risen and drawn her lithe, unresisting form to his bosom. She
wept silently, a little convulsive sob now and then breaking the
stillness.

"You will not leave me again, Edmund, will you?" she queried, with a
sweet, distressed look, as if the very thought of being once more
alone made her shudder.

"No, Emily dear, I will never leave you."

"Can you believe me, Edmund?" she began suddenly, after a long pause.
"I have always been true to you."

He clasped her face between his palms, drew it back to gaze at it, and
then kissed her tenderly.

"God bless you, darling!" he whispered, folding her closely in his
arms, as if he feared that some one might take her away from him.

How he would love and keep and protect her--this poor bruised little
creature, whom he had once so selfishly abandoned at the very first
suspicion of disloyalty! As she stood there, nestling so confidingly
against his bosom, his heart went out to her with a great yearning
pity, and he thanked God even for the long suffering and separation
which had made their love the more abiding and sacred.

The next day Storm and Emily were quietly married, and the baby and I
were present as witnesses. They now live in a charming little cottage
on the Jersey side, which is to me a wonder of taste and comfort. Out
of my friend's miscellaneous assortment of ancient furniture his wife
has succeeded in creating a series of the quaintest, most fascinating
boudoirs and parlors and bedrooms--everything, as Storm assures me,
historically correct and in perfect style and keeping; so that, in
walking through the house, you get a whiff of at least three distinct
centuries. To quote Storm once more, he sleeps in the sober religious
atmosphere of the German Reformation, with its rational wood-tints and
solid oaken carvings, dines amid the pagan splendors of the Italian
Renaissance, and receives company among the florid conventionalities
of the French rococo period.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories
by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

*** END OF THIS