"Yes, I know," Edith answered, and laying her hand on Arthur's she said, "Please, Mr. St Claire, go away awhile. I must see Nina alone. Don't let anybody disturb us, will you? Go to Mrs.

Lamotte. Ask her what I mean. She can tell you. She told me."

Thus importuned, Arthur left the room, and Edith was alone with Nina.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SISTERS.

Oh, how Edith yearned to take that sweet young creature to her bosom, and concentrate in one wild, pa.s.sionate hug the love of so many wasted years; but Nina must not be unduly startled if she would make her comprehend what she had to tell, and conquering her own agitation with a wondrous effort she sat down upon the bed, and said,

"How is my darling? Is her head all in a twist?"

Nina smiled, a rational, knowing smile, and answered,

"There wasn't the least bit of a twist in it till Arthur told me about that in the graveyard, and then it began to thump so loud, but with you sitting here, I'm better. You do me so much good, Miggie. Your eyes keep me quiet. Where do you suppose she is--the other Miggie; and how did she get out of the coffin?"

"Nina," said Edith, "can you understand me if I tell you a story about a little girl who resembled your sister Miggie?"

Nina liked stories and though she would rather have talked of the real Miggie, she expressed a willingness to listen, and by the dim candle light Edith saw that the blue eyes, fixed so intently upon her, still retained the comparatively rational expression she had observed when she first came in. Moving a little nearer to her, she began,

"A great many years ago, nearly eighteen, we will say, a beautiful little girl, eight years old, I guess, with curls like yours, waited one night in just such a house as this, for her father, who had been long in Europe, and who was to bring her a new mother, and a dear baby sister, two years old or thereabouts."

"Didn't I wear my blue dress, trimmed with white?" Nina asked suddenly, her mind seeming to have followed Edith's, and grasped the meaning of what she heard.

"I dare say you did," Edith answered; "at all events this little girl was very beautiful as she waited in the twilight for the travellers."

"Call the little girl Nina, please, I'll get at it better then,"

was the next interruption; and with a smile, Edith said,

"Nina, then, waited till they came--her father, her new mother Petrea, and--"

"Beautiful Petrea," Nina exclaimed, "la belle Petrea, black hair like yours, Miggie, and voice like the soft notes of the piano.

She taught me a heap of tunes which I never have forgotten, but tell me more of the black-eyed baby, Nina's precious sister. I did hug and squeeze her so--'la jolie enfant,' Marie called her."

Nina seemed to have taken the story away from Edith, who, when she ceased speaking, again went on:

"Eloise Marguerite was the baby sister's name; Eloise, for a proud aunt, who, after they came home, would not suffer them to call her so, and she was known as Marguerite, which Nina shortened into Miggie, Nina darling," and Edith spoke sadly now. "Was your father always kind to Petrea?"

There was a look in Nina's face like a scared bird, and raising her hands to her head, she said,

"Go away, old buzzing. Let Nina think what it was they used to do- -pa and grandma and aunt Eloise. I know now; grandma and auntie were proud of the Bernard blood, they said, and they called Petrea vulgar, and baby sister a brat; and pa--oh, Miggie, I reckon he was naughty to the new mother. He had a buzz in his head most every night, not like mine, but a buzz that he got at the dinner and the side-board, where they kept the bottles, and he struck her, I saw him, and Marie, she was here, too, she stepped between them, and called him a drunken, deceitful beast, and a heap more in French. Then one morning when he was gone to New Orleans, and would come home pretty soon, mother and Marie and Miggie went a visiting to Tallaha.s.see, or somewhere, and they never came back again, though pa went after them as soon as he got home. Why didn't they, Miggie?"

"Petrea was very unhappy here," Edith answered. "Mr. Bernard abused her, as did his haughty mother, and once when he was gone Petrea said she would go to Tallaha.s.see to see a lady who had visited her at Sunnybank. So she went with Marie, and Miggie, then three years old, but did not stop in Tallaha.s.see. They ran away to New York, where Marie's sister lived. Here Petrea was taken sick and died, making Marie promise that Miggie should never go back to her bad father and his proud family. And Marie, who hated them bitterly, all but Nina, kept her word. She wrote to Sunnybank that both were dead, and the letter was forwarded by your grandmother to Mr. Bernard, who had gone after his wife, but who lay drunk many days at a hotel. The letter sobered him, and as it contained Marie's address, he found her at last, crying bitterly for little Miggie, up stairs asleep, but he thought her in the coffin with her mother. Marie said so and he believed her, bringing the bodies back to Sunnybank, and burying them beneath the magnolias."

"And built a great marble there with both their names cut on it,"

chimed in Nina, fearful lest any part of the story should be omitted.

"Yes," returned Edith, "he raised a costly monument to their memory; but don't you wish to know what became of Miggie?"

"Yes, yes, oh, yes, go on," was Nina's answer; and Edith continued,

"Marie was too poor to take care of Miggie, and she put her in the Asylum."

"The Asylum!" Nina fairly screamed. "Nina's baby sister in the nasty old Asylum. No, no, it ain't. I won't, I shan't listen to the naughty story," and the excited girl covered her head with a pillow.

But Edith removed it gently, and with a few loving words quieted the little lady, who said again, "Go on."

"It was the Orphan Asylum, where Nina's sister was put, but they didn't call her Miggie. Her dying mother gave her another name lest the father should some time find her, and there in that great noisy city Miggie lived five or six long years, gradually forgetting everything in the past, everything but Marie's name and the airs her mother used to sing. Miggie had a taste for music, and she retained the plaintive strains sung to her as lullabys."

"I know them, too," Nina said, beginning to hum one, while Edith continued,

"After a time Marie went back to France. She did not mean to stay long, but she was attacked with a lingering, painful sickness, and could not return to Miggie, whom a beautiful lady took at last as her waiting-maid. Then Arthur came--Arthur, a boy--and she saw Nina's picture."

"The one in the locket! Nina asked, and Edith answered, "Yes, 'twas in a locket, and it puzzled Miggie till she spoke the name, but thought it was Arthur who told her."

"Wait, wait," cried Nina, suddenly striking her forehead a heavy blow; "I'm getting all mixed up, and something flashes across my brain like lightning. I reckon it's a streak of sense. It feels like it."

Nina was right. It was "a streak of sense," and when Edith again resumed her story the crazy girl was very calm and quiet.

"After a time this Miggie went to live with a blind man--with Richard," and Edith's hands closed tightly around the snowy fingers, which crept so quickly toward her. "She grew to be a woman. She met this golden-haired Nina, but did not know her, though Nina called her Miggie always, because she looked like Petrea, and the sound to Miggie was very sweet, like music heard long ago. They loved each other dearly, and to Miggie there was nothing in the whole world so beautiful, so precious, as poor little crazy Nina, Arthur's Nina, Dr. Griswold's Nina, 'Snow- Drop,' Richard called her. You remember Richard, darling?"

"Yes, yes, I remember everything," and Nina's chest began to heave, her chin to quiver, her white lips, too, but still she shed no tear, and the dry, blue eyes seemed piercing Edith's very soul as the latter continued, rapidly, "Nina came home to Florida; she sent for Miggie, and Miggie came, finding Marie who told her all-- told her where the baby was--and the real Miggie fell on her face, thanking the good Father for giving her the sweetest, dearest sister a mortal ever had. Do you understand me, darling? Do you know now who I am--know who Miggie is?"

Edith's voice began to falter, and when she had finished she sat gazing at the fairy form, which trembled and writhed a moment as if in fearful convulsions, then the struggling ceased, the features became composed, and raising herself in bed Nina crept closer and closer to Edith, her lips quivering as if she fain would speak but had not the power. Slowly the little hands were raised and met together around Edith's neck; nearer and nearer the white face came to the dark glowing one, until breath met breath, lip met lip, golden tresses mixed with raven braids, and with a cry which made the very rafters ring and went echoing far out into the darkness, Nina said, "You are--that--that--ba-baby--the one we thought was dead. You are my--my--Nina's--oh, Miggie, say it for me or Nina'll choke to death. She can't think what the right word is--the word that means MIGGIE," and poor exhausted Nina fell back upon the pillow, while Edith, bending over her, whispered in her ear, "Miggie means SISTER, darling; your SISTER; do you hear?"

"Yes, yes," and again the wild, glad cry went ringing through the house, as Nina threw herself a second time on Edith's bosom.

"Sister, sister, Nina's sister. Nina's little Miggie once, great, tall Miggie now,--mine, my own--n.o.body's sister but mine. Does Arthur know, Ho, Arthur! come quick! He is coming, don't you hear him. Arthur, Arthur, Miggie is mine. My precious sister," and Nina Bernard fell back fainting just as Arthur appeared in the room, and just as from the yard without there went up from the congregated blacks, who together with their master and Victor, had listened to Marie's story, a deafening shout, a loud huzza for "Miggie Bernard," come back to Sunnybank, and back to those who generously admitted her claim, and would ere long acknowledge her as their mistress.

The few particulars which Edith had omitted in her story to Nina may, perhaps, be better told now than at any other time. Mr.

Bernard, while in Paris, had been implicated in some disgraceful affair which rendered him liable to arrest, and taking the name of Temple, by way of avoiding suspicion, he fled to Germany, where he met and married the beautiful Swedish Petrea, who, being young and weary of a governess's life, was the more easily charmed with his wealth and rather gentlemanly address. Because it suited his peculiar nature to do so, he kept his real name from her until they reached New York, when, fearful of meeting with some of his acquaintances there, he confessed the fraud, laughing at it as a good joke, and p.r.o.nounced Petrea over nice for saying he had done wrong.

The year which followed their arrival at Sunnybank was a year of wretchedness and pining home-sickness on the part of both mistress and maid, until at last the former, with her love for her husband changed to hate, determined to leave him; and in his absence, planned the visit to Tallaha.s.see, going instead to New York, where she died at the house of Mrs. Jamieson, Marie's sister. Even to the last, the dread of her hated husband prevailed, and she made Marie swear that her child should not go back to him.

"She will be happier to be poor," she said, "and I would rather far that not a cent of the Bernard property should ever come into her possession than that she should return to Sunnybank; but sometime, Marie, when she is older, you may tell her my sad story, and if he has become a better man, tell her who she is, and of the bright-haired Nina. They will love each other, I am sure, for Nina possesses nothing in common with her father, and lest she should think ill of me for having married him, tell her how young, how inexperienced I was, and how he deceived me, withholding even his real name."

This was the point on which Petrea dwelt the most, shrinking, with a kind of pride, from having it generally known, and persisting in calling herself Temple to Mrs. Jamieson, who supposed this to be her real name, inasmuch as Marie had called her so on the occasion of her first visit after landing in New York the year previous, and before the deception had been confessed.

"Don't undeceive her," Petrea said to Marie, who did her mistress's bidding; and as Mrs. Jamieson was sick when Mr. Bernard came, she did not see him, and was thus effectually kept in ignorance that Edith's real name was Marguerite Bernard, else she had divulged it to Richard, when in after years he came inquiring for her parentage.

The rest the reader knows, except indeed, how Marie came to Sunnybank a second time, and why she had so long neglected Edith.

She was with her mistress in Germany when Richard saved the child from drowning. She never forgot him, and when from her sister she learned that Edith was with him, she felt that interference on her part was unnecessary. So even after recovering from her illness she deferred returning to America, marrying, at last, and living in an humble way in Paris, where she more than once saw Mr.

Bernard in the streets, when he was there with Nina. So many years had elapsed since his first visit that he had no fears of arrest, and openly appeared in public, recognised by none save Marie, who never could forget him. Her husband's sudden death determined her upon coming to America and looking up her child. The vessel in which she sailed was bound for New Orleans, and, with a desire to visit Sunnybank once more, she first wended her way thither, expecting to find it inhabited by strangers; for, from an American paper, which accidentally fell into her hands, she had heard of Mr. Bernard's decease, and later still had heard from one who was Nina's waiting maid while in Paris, that she, too, was dead. How this information was obtained she did not know, but believing it to be authentic, she supposed strangers, of course, were now the tenants of Sunnybank; and antic.i.p.ated much pleasure in restoring to the so-called Edith Hastings her rightful heritage. Great then was her surprise to find Nina living, and when she heard that Edith was soon expected in Florida, she determined to await her coming.

This was the story she told to Edith and also to the negroes, many of whom remembered their unfortunate young mistress and her beautiful baby Miggie still; but for the missing body they might have doubted Marie's word, but that was proof conclusive, and their loud hurrahs for Miss Miggie Bernard were repeated until Nina came back to consciousness, smiling as she heard the cry and remembered what it meant.