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Life passes, with us all, a day at a time; so it passed with our friendTom, till two years were gone. Though parted from all his soul helddear, and though often yearning for what lay beyond, still was he neverpositively and consciously miserable; for, so well is the harp of humanfeeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string canwholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in reviewappear to us as those of deprivation and trial, we can remember thateach hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, sothat, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable.

Tom read, in his only literary cabinet, of one who had "learned inwhatsoever state he was, therewith to be content." It seemed to himgood and reasonable doctrine, and accorded well with the settled andthoughtful habit which he had acquired from the reading of that samebook.

His letter homeward, as we related in the last chapter, was in due timeanswered by Master George, in a good, round, school-boy hand, thatTom said might be read "most acrost the room." It contained variousrefreshing items of home intelligence, with which our reader is fullyacquainted: stated how Aunt Chloe had been hired out to a confectionerin Louisville, where her skill in the pastry line was gaining wonderfulsums of money, all of which, Tom was informed, was to be laid up to goto make up the sum of his redemption money; Mose and Pete were thriving,and the baby was trotting all about the house, under the care of Sallyand the family generally.

Tom's cabin was shut up for the present; but George expatiatedbrilliantly on ornaments and additions to be made to it when Tom cameback.

The rest of this letter gave a list of George's school studies, eachone headed by a flourishing capital; and also told the names of four newcolts that appeared on the premises since Tom left; and stated, in thesame connection, that father and mother were well. The style of theletter was decidedly concise and terse; but Tom thought it the mostwonderful specimen of composition that had appeared in modern times. Hewas never tired of looking at it, and even held a council with Eva onthe expediency of getting it framed, to hang up in his room. Nothing butthe difficulty of arranging it so that both sides of the page would showat once stood in the way of this undertaking.

The friendship between Tom and Eva had grown with the child's growth. Itwould be hard to say what place she held in the soft, impressible heartof her faithful attendant. He loved her as something frail and earthly,yet almost worshipped her as something heavenly and divine. He gazed onher as the Italian sailor gazes on his image of the child Jesus,--with amixture of reverence and tenderness; and to humor her graceful fancies,and meet those thousand simple wants which invest childhood likea many-colored rainbow, was Tom's chief delight. In the market, atmorning, his eyes were always on the flower-stalls for rare bouquetsfor her, and the choicest peach or orange was slipped into his pocket togive to her when he came back; and the sight that pleased him most washer sunny head looking out the gate for his distant approach, and herchildish questions,--"Well, Uncle Tom, what have you got for me today?"

Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return. Though a child, shewas a beautiful reader;--a fine musical ear, a quick poetic fancy, andan instinctive sympathy with what's grand and noble, made her such areader of the Bible as Tom had never before heard. At first, she read toplease her humble friend; but soon her own earnest nature threw out itstendrils, and wound itself around the majestic book; and Eva loved it,because it woke in her strange yearnings, and strong, dim emotions, suchas impassioned, imaginative children love to feel.

The parts that pleased her most were the Revelations and theProphecies,--parts whose dim and wondrous imagery, and ferventlanguage, impressed her the more, that she questioned vainly of theirmeaning;--and she and her simple friend, the old child and the youngone, felt just alike about it. All that they knew was, that they spokeof a glory to be revealed,--a wondrous something yet to come, whereintheir soul rejoiced, yet knew not why; and though it be not so in thephysical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is notalways profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, betweentwo dim eternities,--the eternal past, the eternal future. The lightshines only on a small space around her; therefore, she needs must yearntowards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come toher from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes andanswers in her own expecting nature. Its mystic imagery are so manytalismans and gems inscribed with unknown hieroglyphics; she folds themin her bosom, and expects to read them when she passes beyond the veil.

At this time in our story, the whole St. Clare establishment is, for thetime being, removed to their villa on Lake Pontchartrain. The heats ofsummer had driven all who were able to leave the sultry and unhealthycity, to seek the shores of the lake, and its cool sea-breezes.

St. Clare's villa was an East Indian cottage, surrounded by lightverandahs of bamboo-work, and opening on all sides into gardens andpleasure-grounds. The common sitting-room opened on to a large garden,fragrant with every picturesque plant and flower of the tropics, wherewinding paths ran down to the very shores of the lake, whose silverysheet of water lay there, rising and falling in the sunbeams,--a picturenever for an hour the same, yet every hour more beautiful.

It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles the wholehorizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water another sky. Thelake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where white-winged vesselsglided hither and thither, like so many spirits, and little goldenstars twinkled through the glow, and looked down at themselves as theytrembled in the water.

Tom and Eva were seated on a little mossy seat, in an arbor, at the footof the garden. It was Sunday evening, and Eva's Bible lay open on herknee. She read,--"And I saw a sea of glass, mingled with fire."

"Tom," said Eva, suddenly stopping, and pointing to the lake, "there 'tis."

"What, Miss Eva?"

"Don't you see,--there?" said the child, pointing to the glassy water,which, as it rose and fell, reflected the golden glow of the sky."There's a 'sea of glass, mingled with fire.'"

"True enough, Miss Eva," said Tom; and Tom sang--

"O, had I the wings of the morning, I'd fly away to Canaan's shore; Bright angels should convey me home, To the new Jerusalem."

"Where do you suppose new Jerusalem is, Uncle Tom?" said Eva.

"O, up in the clouds, Miss Eva."

"Then I think I see it," said Eva. "Look in those clouds!--they looklike great gates of pearl; and you can see beyond them--far, faroff--it's all gold. Tom, sing about 'spirits bright.'"

Tom sung the words of a well-known Methodist hymn,

"I see a band of spirits bright, That taste the glories there; They all are robed in spotless white, And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom, I've seen _them_," said Eva.

Tom had no doubt of it at all; it did not surprise him in the least.If Eva had told him she had been to heaven, he would have thought itentirely probable.

"They come to me sometimes in my sleep, those spirits;" and Eva's eyesgrew dreamy, and she hummed, in a low voice,

"They are all robed in spotless white, And conquering palms they bear."

"Uncle Tom," said Eva, "I'm going there."

"Where, Miss Eva?"

The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky; the glow ofevening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a kind of unearthlyradiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on the skies.

"I'm going _there_," she said, "to the spirits bright, Tom; _I'm going,before long_."

The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how oftenhe had noticed, within six months, that Eva's little hands had grownthinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and how,when she ran or played in the garden, as she once could for hours, shebecame soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss Ophelia speak oftenof a cough, that all her medicaments could not cure; and even now thatfervent cheek and little hand were burning with hectic fever; and yetthe thought that Eva's words suggested had never come to him till now.

Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but theirnames are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenlyeyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures ofyearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that allthe goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charmsof one who _is not_. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels,whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them thewayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them intheir homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in theeye,--when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiserthan the ordinary words of children,--hope not to retain that child; forthe seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out fromits eyes.

Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou art passing away;but they that love thee dearest know it not.

The colloquy between Tom and Eva was interrupted by a hasty call fromMiss Ophelia.

"Eva--Eva!--why, child, the dew is falling; you mustn't be out there!"

Eva and Tom hastened in.

Miss Ophelia was old, and skilled in the tactics of nursing. She wasfrom New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps of thatsoft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so many of the fairestand loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken, seals themirrevocably for death.

She had noted the slight, dry cough, the daily brightening cheek;nor could the lustre of the eye, and the airy buoyancy born of fever,deceive her.

She tried to communicate her fears to St. Clare; but he threw backher suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike his usual carelessgood-humor.

"Don't be croaking, Cousin,--I hate it!" he would say; "don't you seethat the child is only growing. Children always lose strength when theygrow fast."

"But she has that cough!"

"O! nonsense of that cough!--it is not anything. She has taken a littlecold, perhaps."

"Well, that was just the way Eliza Jane was taken, and Ellen and MariaSanders."

"O! stop these hobgoblin' nurse legends. You old hands got so wise, thata child cannot cough, or sneeze, but you see desperation and ruin athand. Only take care of the child, keep her from the night air, anddon't let her play too hard, and she'll do well enough."

So St. Clare said; but he grew nervous and restless. He watched Evafeverishly day by day, as might be told by the frequency with whichhe repeated over that "the child was quite well"--that there wasn'tanything in that cough,--it was only some little stomach affection, suchas children often had. But he kept by her more than before, took heroftener to ride with him, brought home every few days some receipt orstrengthening mixture,--"not," he said, "that the child _needed_ it, butthen it would not do her any harm."

If it must be told, the thing that struck a deeper pang to his heartthan anything else was the daily increasing maturity of the child's mindand feelings. While still retaining all a child's fanciful graces, yetshe often dropped, unconsciously, words of such a reach of thought, andstrange unworldly wisdom, that they seemed to be an inspiration. At suchtimes, St. Clare would feel a sudden thrill, and clasp her in his arms,as if that fond clasp could save her; and his heart rose up with wilddetermination to keep her, never to let her go.

The child's whole heart and soul seemed absorbed in works of love andkindness. Impulsively generous she had always been; but there wasa touching and womanly thoughtfulness about her now, that every onenoticed. She still loved to play with Topsy, and the various coloredchildren; but she now seemed rather a spectator than an actor of theirplays, and she would sit for half an hour at a time, laughing at the oddtricks of Topsy,--and then a shadow would seem to pass across her face,her eyes grew misty, and her thoughts were afar.

"Mamma," she said, suddenly, to her mother, one day, "why don't we teachour servants to read?"

"What a question child! People never do."

"Why don't they?" said Eva.

"Because it is no use for them to read. It don't help them to work anybetter, and they are not made for anything else."

"But they ought to read the Bible, mamma, to learn God's will."

"O! they can get that read to them all _they_ need."

"It seems to me, mamma, the Bible is for every one to read themselves.They need it a great many times when there is nobody to read it."

"Eva, you are an odd child," said her mother.

"Miss Ophelia has taught Topsy to read," continued Eva.

"Yes, and you see how much good it does. Topsy is the worst creature Iever saw!"

"Here's poor Mammy!" said Eva. "She does love the Bible so much, andwishes so she could read! And what will she do when I can't read toher?"

Marie was busy, turning over the contents of a drawer, as she answered,

"Well, of course, by and by, Eva, you will have other things to thinkof besides reading the Bible round to servants. Not but that is veryproper; I've done it myself, when I had health. But when you come tobe dressing and going into company, you won't have time. See here!" sheadded, "these jewels I'm going to give you when you come out. I worethem to my first ball. I can tell you, Eva, I made a sensation."

Eva took the jewel-case, and lifted from it a diamond necklace. Herlarge, thoughtful eyes rested on them, but it was plain her thoughtswere elsewhere.

"How sober you look child!" said Marie.

"Are these worth a great deal of money, mamma?"

"To be sure, they are. Father sent to France for them. They are worth asmall fortune."

"I wish I had them," said Eva, "to do what I pleased with!"

"What would you do with them?"

"I'd sell them, and buy a place in the free states, and take all ourpeople there, and hire teachers, to teach them to read and write."

Eva was cut short by her mother's laughing.

"Set up a boarding-school! Wouldn't you teach them to play on the piano,and paint on velvet?"

"I'd teach them to read their own Bible, and write their own letters,and read letters that are written to them," said Eva, steadily. "I know,mamma, it does come very hard on them that they can't do these things.Tom feels it--Mammy does,--a great many of them do. I think it's wrong."

"Come, come, Eva; you are only a child! You don't know anything aboutthese things," said Marie; "besides, your talking makes my head ache."

Marie always had a headache on hand for any conversation that did notexactly suit her.

Eva stole away; but after that, she assiduously gave Mammy readinglessons.