day seldom passed in which he did not present some offering at her shrine, though it were no more than a sweet-scented clover-blossom or a brightly-tinted autumn leaf.
They shared each other’s joys and sorrows: all her little griefs were confided to him; to her he recounted all his boyish dreams of future achievement when he should arrive at man’s estate.
He was a born artist, and found in Floy his chief inspiration; for while his parents and older brothers and sisters laughed at and discouraged him, she believed thoroughly in him, and was sure he would some day be a Rubens, a Raphael, a Michael Angelo, or something even greater than any of them or all put together; and her graceful little figure and winsome face furnished him with a model that he was never weary of copying.
Mr. Alden, hoping that this son would embrace one of the learned professions, determined to give him a liberal education; and the first great grief either Floy or Espy had known was the parting when the latter went away to school. Yet there was compensation in a steady correspondence, kept up with the knowledge and approval of their parents, and in the joy of the reunion when vacation brought Espy home again.
Cranley could boast of a good school for girls, and Floy did not go from home for her education. At seventeen she was a very pretty, engaging girl, and as Mr. Kemper had prospered, and was known to be in easy circumstances, she had plenty of admirers; but she remained true to Espy, though theirs was as yet only a tacit engagement.
Floy graduated from school in June of that year, and Mr. Kemper took her and his wife on a summer trip to the East. They spent several weeks at the sea-shore, visited Philadelphia and New York and other places of interest, then turned homeward.
All had gone well with them, and now within a few miles of Cranley they were speaking of this gladly, thankfully.
“Oh, yes, we’ve had a delightful time,” said Floy, “and yet I am eager to be in our own dear home again. There is no place like home when it is as happy a one as ours.”
Mr. Kemper smiled indulgently upon her.
“Quite right, my little girl,” he said, “and our Floy makes half its brightness to us. Is not that so, mamma?” addressing his wife.
“It is indeed,” she answered, half sighing as the thought suggested itself that, some day, another would have a stronger claim than they upon this darling of her heart.
The whistle blew, the train slackened its speed, then came to a stand-still at a little country station.
“Peaches! apples! pears!”
A boy had come in with a basket of fruit on his arm.
Mr. Kemper bought liberally of him; then selecting a gold half-eagle from the contents of his purse, he dropped it into Floy’s hand, saying, “There’s a trifle for you. I wonder how long it will be before you spend it.”
“A good while, papa, if you keep me in greenbacks enough to supply my wants,” she returned gayly, as she deposited it in a dainty portemonnaie. “Thanks for the gift; I’ll be sure to think of you when I look at it.”
“Better put it in bank along with the rest; there’s five hundred dollars there now to your credit.”
“Then I can afford to keep this to look at.”
The smile died on her lips almost before the words left them.
“Something’s wrong with the engine,” a voice was saying behind her. “Nobody knows how long we’ll have to stop here, and we’re not up to time by half an hour. Hark! what’s that? Another train coming! we shall be run into!”
Faces paled with sudden fear; men and women started to their feet in wild affright. There was a shrill whistle, answered by another, a rush and roar, then a crash, many voices blending in an awful cry, and Floy knew no more till, waking as from a deep sleep, she felt herself gently lifted, while a strange voice said:
“She’s only stunned; not much hurt, I hope. But this other woman is horribly mangled, and the man—well, his pains are over for this life at least.”
Instantly restored to perfect consciousness, Floy opened her eyes with a cry, “Mother! father! oh, where are they? Let me go to them!”
The men set her down on a fragment of the wreck, and turned to help those in greater need.
The girl passed her hand over her eyes as if to clear her vision. Oh, was it not all a horrible dream? The heaped-up ruins, the bleeding, mangled forms of the dead and dying, the shrieks, the groans, the cries for help, the running to and fro of those who were trying to give it, the frenzied search for missing loved ones, the wail of anguish over the wounded and the slain!
What was that they were bearing past her? Could that be her mother’s voice asking in quivering, agonized tones for husband and child?
She sprang up and ran after the rude litter on which the crushed and bleeding form was borne along toward a farm-house a few rods distant. She caught sight of the face, white with the pallor of death and convulsed with pain. A gleam of joy shot over it as the eyes fell on the face and figure of Floy. “My darling! safe, thank God!” came from the pale, quivering lips.
“Mother, mother!” cried the girl.
“Be comforted, darling; I can bear it; ’twill not be for long,” gasped the sufferer.
They carried her into the house and laid her on a bed. Floy knelt by her side, grasping the dear hand in hers, laying it to her cheek, pressing it to her lips, passionately weeping with a grief that seemed to rend her heart asunder.
“Floy, dearest, it is all right. God’s will be done. He knows best. He will comfort you.”
The quick ear of the girl scarcely caught the low-breathed words, and with the last Mrs. Kemper fainted.
At the same moment a gentleman came hastily in and stepped to the bedside.
Instinctively Floy comprehended his errand, even ere he laid his finger on the pulse or raised the shawl that half concealed the shattered form.
She rose, outwardly calm and collected.
“Can my mother live?” she asked.
“For some hours,” he said, looking pityingly into the grief-stricken face of his questioner.
“Where is she hurt?”
“Poor child! how shall I tell you? Her lower limbs are completely crushed, and even amputation would not save her life.”
Floy caught at the bedstead for support, a low cry of heart-breaking anguish bursting from her lips. “Oh, mother, mother! And my father!” she gasped, “oh, where is he?”
“The gentleman who occupied the same seat with this lady? Ah, my dear child, he is done with pain.”
The girl sank upon her knees again, hiding her face in her hands and trembling in every fibre. So sudden, so terrible were these successive blows that the very earth seemed slipping from beneath her feet.
“Dear Lord, her heart is overwhelmed; lead her to the Rock that is higher than she.”
The
