An'I 've got somethin'else besides the pickerel.When I come to cut him open,what do you think I faound in his insides but this here ring o'yourn,"--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before.There it was,as good as new,after having tried Jonah's style of housekeeping for all that time.There are those who discredit Jake's story about finding the ring in the fish;anyhow,there was the ring and there was the pickerel.I need not say that Jake went off well paid for his pickerel and the precious contents of its stomach.Now comes the chief event of the evening.I went early by special invitation.Maurice took me into his library,and we sat down together.
"I have something of great importance,"he said,"to say to you.Ilearned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friend in the next town to this.You know,doctor,that we have never met since the last,almost fatal,experience of my early years.
I have determined to defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connected with her presence,and I have begged her to come this evening with the friends with whom she is staying.Several letters passed between us,for it was hard to persuade her that there was no longer any risk in my meeting her.Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine had been at those alarming interviews,and I had to explain to her fully that I had become quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions of former years.So,as the result of our correspondence,Laura is coming this evening,and I wish you to be present at our meeting.There is another reason why I wish you to be here.My little boy is not far from the--age at which I received my terrifying,almost disorganizing shock.I mean to have little Maurice brought into the presence of Laura,who is said to be still a very handsome woman,and see if he betrays any hint of that peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure.It seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of that nature,and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger should declare itself.For myself I have no fear.Some radical change has taken place in my nervous system.I have been born again,as it were,in my susceptibilities,and am in certain respects a new man.But I must know how it is with my little Maurice."Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment;for experiment it was,and not without its sources of anxiety,as it seemed to me.The evening wore along;friends and neighbors came in,but no Laura as yet.At last I heard the sound of wheels,and a carriage stopped at the door.Two ladies and a gentleman got out,and soon entered the drawing room.
"My cousin Laura!"whispered Maurice to me,and went forward to meet her.A very handsome woman,who might well have been in the thirties,--one of those women so thoroughly constituted that they cannot help being handsome at every period of life.I watched them both as they approached each other.Both looked pale at first,but Maurice soon recovered his usual color,and Laura's natural,rich bloom came back by degrees.Their emotion at meeting was not to be wondered at,but there was no trace in it of the paralyzing influence on the great centres of life which had once acted upon its fated victim like the fabled head which turned the looker-on into a stone.
"Is the boy still awake?"said Maurice to Paolo,who,as they used to say of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern,was everywhere at once on that gay and busy evening.
"What!Mahser Maurice asleep an'all this racket going on?I hear him crowing like young cockerel when he fus'smell daylight.""Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that leads out of the library."The child was brought down in his night-clothes,wide awake,wondering apparently at the noise he heard,which he seemed to think was for his special amusement.
"See if he will go to that lady,"said his father.Both of us held our breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice.
The child looked for an instant searchingly,but fearlessly,at her glowing cheeks,her bright eyes,her welcoming smile,and met her embrace as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all his days.
The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of Maurice Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself snatched from the grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia.
In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix which the reader may by this time have forgotten,namely,the First Opening.It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of a second opening.
I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a certain small favor of me that,as I can only expect to be with my surviving contemporaries a very little while longer,they would be much obliged if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late.
They are right,these delicious unknown friends of mine,in reminding me of a fact which I cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection.I thank them for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser,if not more hilarious,for remembering.
No,I had no right to say the First Opening.How do I know that Ishall have a chance to open it again?How do I know that anybody will want it to be opened a second time?How do I know that I shall feel like opening it?It is safest neither to promise to open the New Portfolio once more,nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter.There are many papers potentially existent in it,some of which might interest a reader here and there.The Records of the Pansophian Society contain a considerable number of essays,poems,stories,and hints capable of being expanded into presentable dimensions.In the mean time I will say with Prospero,addressing my old readers,and my new ones,if such I have,"If you be pleased,retire into my cell And there repose:a turn or two I'll walk,To still my beating mind."When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again,and consider whether it is worth while to open it.
End
