he declining years of your old
parents--to cheer with your warm heart the many friends who love
you--and, may I add," he continued, with a faltering voice, "that my
poor, poor mother will need your consolation. She will soon be without a
protector on earth, and this sad news, I fear, will well nigh break her
heart. To you, and to the kind hands of her merciful Father in heaven, I
commit the charge of my widowed mother. Oh, will you not grant the last
request of your own Hansford?"

And Virginia promised, and well and faithfully did she redeem that
promise. That widowed mother gained a daughter in the loss of her noble
boy, and died blessing the pure-hearted girl, whose soothing affection
had sweetened her bitter sorrows, and smoothed her pathway to the quiet
grave.

"And now, Mr. Bernard," said Hansford, "it is useless to prolong this
sad interview. We have been enemies. Forgive me if I have ever done you
wrong--the prayers of a dying man are for your happiness. Farewell,
Virginia, remember me to your kind old father and mother; and look you,"
he added, with a sigh, "give this lock of my hair to my poor mother, and
tell her that her orphan boy, who died blessing her, requested that she
would place it in her old Bible, where I know she will often see it, and
remember me when I am gone forever. Once more, Virginia, fare well!
Remember, dearest, that this brief life is but a segment of the great
circle of existence. The larger segment is beyond the grave. Then live
on bravely, as I know you will virtuously, and we will meet in Heaven."

Without a word, for she dared not speak, Virginia received his last kiss
upon her pale, cold forehead, and cherished it there as a seal of love,
sacred as the sign of the Redeemer's cross, traced on the infant brow at
the baptismal font.

CHAPTER XLIX.

"Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale,
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns,
And till this ghastly tale is told
My heart within me burns."
_Rime of the Ancient Mariner._

The sun shone brightly the next morning, as it rose above the forest of
tall pines which surrounded the little village of Accomac; and as its
rays stained the long icicles on the evergreen branches of the trees,
they looked like the pendant jewels of amber which hung from the ears of
the fierce,