reluctance. It was very soon after the reception of
the letter from Ernest to which we have alluded, that Franz Rainer's
health began to fail, and that so rapidly, that Meeta feared Ernest
could not arrive in time to see him. She was to the old man an angel of
consolation, and he clung to her as to his last hope. In pity to his
lonely condition, her own parents were willing to spare her for a time,
and Meeta, that she might take care of him by night as well as by day,
had removed to his house a week before Ernest's arrival. He came not
wholly unwarned of the sorrow that awaited him, for he had found a
letter from Meeta at the house of the merchant in Philadelphia through
whom he had corresponded with his father, tenderly yet plainly revealing
her fears, and urging him to hurry homeward without delay. He travelled
with little rest or refreshment for two days and nights, and arrived
late on the third day at his father's house. It was a still summer
evening, and while the old man slept, Meeta sat near him in the only
parlor the house afforded, reading by a shaded night lamp. She heard
the sound of carriage wheels, and paused to listen; the sound ceased; a
shadow darkened the moonlight which had been streaming through an open
window, and then Ernest, the playfellow of her childhood, the lover of
her youth, stood before her; but how changed, how gloriously changed
thought Meeta, even in that hour of hurry and agitation. They gazed on
each other in silence for a moment, and then Meeta with a bright smile,
yet in a whisper, for even then she forgot not the dying man, asked:

"Do you not know me, Ernest?"

"Meeta!" he ejaculated, as he took the hand she extended to him, but
dropping it almost immediately, he said anxiously: "My father! he lives,
Meeta?"

"He does, Ernest, and may live, I think _will_ live, for many days yet."

"Thank GOD! then I shall see him again!"

The conversation had till now been in whispers, but Ernest uttered his
ejaculation of thankfulness aloud. There was a movement in the old man's
room, a sound, and Meeta glided to his side.

"Who were you talking with, my daughter?" he murmured feebly. For many
days Franz Rainer had called Meeta daughter, as though he found pleasure
in recalling the tie between them.

"With one who tells me Ernest has arrived, and will see you soon," said
Meeta.

"It is Ernest himself. I knew his voice: Ernest, my son!" And the old
man's tones were loud and strong, as Meet