LITMIR.BIZ

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with her disappearing, vanish. And yet this vision had not to him the significance of the bow seen in the cloud, whose interpreter, and whose interpretation, was the Almighty Love.

      All day he stood before that window. The keeper hailed the symptom. The Governor was satisfied with the report. Towards sunset the rain was over, and with the sun came forth abundant indications of the island life. The gardener walked among the garden-beds and measured his morrow's work, calculating time and means within his reach,—and vouchsafing some attention to the flower-garden, as was evident when he paused before it and made his thoughtful survey. The prisoner saw him smile when he took hold of the broken stalk which had been flower-crowned. And Sandy saw the prisoner.

      The next day Elizabeth came out with the gardener, and they began their day's work together. They seemed to be in the best spirits. The smell of the fresh-turned earth, the sight of the fresh shoots of tender green springing from bulb and root and branch, acted upon them like an inspiration. The warm sun also held them to their task. Sandy was generous in bestowing aid and counsel,—and also in the matter of his land,—trenching farther on the ground allotted to the vegetables than he had ever done before.

      "The land must pay for it," said he. "We'll make a foot give us a yard's worth. Cram a bushel into a peck, though 'The Doctor' said you never could do that! I know how to coax."

      "Yes, and you know how to order, if you have not forgotten, Sandy. You frightened me once for taking an inch over my share."

      "That was a long while back," answered honest Sandy,—"before I knew what the little girl could do. I've seen young folk work at gardening afore, but you do beat 'em all. How could I tell you would, though? You don't look it. Yes,—may-be you do, though. But you've changed since I first knew you."

      "Why, I was nothing but a baby then, Sandy."

      "Yes, yes,—I know; but you're changed since then!"

      So they all spoke to Elizabeth, praising her, confiding in her with loving willingness,—the Daughter of the Regiment.

      The gardener was proud of his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual low and rather mysterious tone,—

      "There's some one will enjoy it when all's done."

      "Who is that?" asked she, thinking he meant herself, perhaps.

      "One up above," was the answer.

      But though Sandy spoke thus plainly, he did not look toward the prison,—and the prison was the last place of which Elizabeth was thinking. It was so long a time since the cell with the window had an occupant, that she was almost unconscious of that gloomy neighborhood. So, when the gardener explained that it was one up above who would enjoy her work, her eyes instantly sought the celestial heights. She was thinking of sun, or star, or angel, may-be, and smiling at Sandy's speech, for sympathy.

      He saw her new mistake, and made haste to correct this also.

      "Not so high," said he, cautiously.

      Then, but as it seemed of chance, and not of purpose, the eyes of Elizabeth Montier turned toward the prison-wall, and fixed upon that window, the solitary one visible from the garden, and her face flushed in a manner that told her surprise—when she saw a man behind the iron bars.

      "Oh," said she, looking away quickly, as if conscious of a wrong done, "what made you tell me?"

      "I guess you will like to think one shut up like him will take a little pleasure looking at what he can't get at," said Sandy, almost sharply,—replying to something he did not quite understand, the pain and the reproof of Elizabeth's speech.

      "Oh, yes!" she answered, and went on with her work.

      But though she might be pleased to think that her labor would answer another and more serious purpose than her own gratification, or that of the pretty flowers, it was something new and strange for the girl to work under this mysterious sense of oversight.

      "You have only got to speak the word," said the gardener, who had perceived her perplexity, and was desirous of bringing her speedily to his view of the case, "just speak, and he will be carried back to his old cell below, t'other side."

      "Will he?"

      "Yes,—sure's you live, if he troubles you, Miss Elizabeth. Nobody will think of letting him trouble you."

      "Oh, me!" she exclaimed, quickly, "I should die quicker than have him moved where he couldn't see the garden."

      "I thought so," said Sandy, satisfied.

      "Did you think I would complain of his standing by his window, Sandy?"

      "How did I know you would like to be stared at?" asked he, with a laugh.

      Elizabeth blushed and looked grave; to her the matter seemed too terrible.

      "I might have said something," she mused, sadly.

      "And if it had been to the wrong person," suggested Sandy;—"for they a'n't very fond of him, I guess."

      "Who is he, then? I never heard."

      "He has been shut up in that building now a'most five year, Elizabeth," said Sandy, leaning on the handle of the spade he had struck into the ground with emphasis.

      "Five years!"

      "Summer heat, and winter cold. All the same to him. No wonder he sticks, as if he was glued, to the window, now he's got one worth the glass."

      "Oh, let him!"

      "If he could walk about the garden, it would be better yet."

      "Won't he, Sandy?"

      "I can't say. He's here for some terrible piece of work, they say. And nobody knows what his name is, I guess,—hereabouts, I mean. I never heard it. He won't be out very quick. But let him look out, any way."

      "Oh, Sandy! I might have said something that would have hindered!"

      "Didn't I know you wouldn't for the world? That's why I told you."

      The gardener now went on with his spading. But Elizabeth's work seemed finished for this day. Above them stood the prisoner. He guessed not what gentle hearts were pitiful with thinking of his sorrow.

      The next day the prisoner was not at the window, nor the next day, nor the next. Sandy was bold enough to ask the keeper, Mr. Laval, what was the meaning of it, and learned that the man was ill, and not likely to recover. Sandy told Elizabeth, and they agreed in thinking that for the poor creature death was probably the least of evils.

      But the day following that on which they came to this conclusion, the sick man appeared before Sandy's astonished eyes. He was under the keeper's care. The physician had ordered this change of air, and they came to the garden at an hour when there was least danger of meeting other persons in the walks.

      Sandy had much to tell Elizabeth when he saw her next. She trembled while he told her how he thought that he had seen a ghost when the keeper came leading the prisoner, whose pale face, tall figure, feeble step, appeared to have so little to do with human nature and affairs.

      "Did he seem to care for the flowers? did he take any?" she asked.

      "No,—he would not touch them. The keeper offered him whatever he would choose. He desired nothing. But he looked at all, he saw everything,—even the beds of vegetables," Sandy said.

      "Did he seem pleased?" Elizabeth again asked.

      "Pleased!" exclaimed Sandy. "That's for you and me,—not a man that's been shut up these five years. No,—he didn't look pleased. I don't know how he looked; don't ask me; 'tisn't pleasant to think of."

      "I would have made him take the flowers, if I had been here," said Elizabeth, in a manner that seemed very positive, in comparison with Sandy's uncertain speech.

      "May-be,—I dare say," Sandy acquiesced; but he evidently had his doubts even of her power in this business.

      She

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