The Daily Dispatch: February 8, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Right or wrong?
[concluded.]

The next morning, father and daughter were to drive to the house of the eminent oculist, and Fred consented to accompany them thither. But he declined entering with them; preferring, he said, to spend the time in inspecting the adjoining asylum for the blind, which the benevolent doctor had instituted. There were not many inmates there; and finding he had still some half-hour to spare, he strolled into a small neighboring cemetery, listlessly reading the names of the humble dead that rested there. On one of the simple black crosses, he started to see the name never long absent from his thought, "Lina Hansmann"--a common name, he knew; but the drops stood thick on his forehead, and his knees knocked one against the other. There was no age, no date of death given, but the paint was fresh, and several fresh-looking garlands hung upon the cross. While he stood there, a little girl, with a shade over her eyes, came slowly and unsteadily along towards it. She had a little white garland to hang there, too. The child started, as Fred addressed her in a broken voice. "Who was the Lina Hansmann buried there?"

"She was a blind woman who had been good to her. Once her parents though she, too, would be blind. Now, Gott lob! the doctor said she would recover. But even if she were blind, she could earn her bread; Lina had taught her to knit so fast, so fast, faster than her sister, who had two strong eyes."

Fred drew a long breath for relief. "And this good Lina, where did she live? When did she die? Was she old or young?"

"She lived in the asylum. It was not quite a month since they laid her there;" and the child began to cry, and then stopped. "Lina told me once," she said, "when she was quite well — before the cruel fever came — that it she died, I was never to cry for her, but to be glad, and to thank God that he had called her home. But I cannot be glad, for I have no one to teach me now, and to sing to me as she did; and I loved her; everybody loved her."

"Was she young?" Fred asked again, with an indescribable throb of terror, which he tried to dismiss as absurd.

The little girl thought that she was old; but her mother had wept much that one so good should have died so young.

Placing a florin in her little thin hand, Fred took the white garland, hung it reverently on the cross; lifted the child, that she might look quite close at it there with her poor suffering eyes; and then he slowly walked away towards the doctor's house. When Sir George and his daughter joined him, they were in the highest possible spirits, Dr. G — had expressed a most decided and most favorable opinion; rest to the eyes, fresh air, and a simple course of treatment were alone necessary, he had said, to insure perfect recovery. Fred tendered his congratulations. "Dr. G--," continued the baronet, "advises me to go in a leisurely way up the Rhine, and then to return here, and let him judge what progress my case has made. I am very glad of this, for I find my little Carrie has quite set her heart upon seeing Heidelberg. Perhaps, Mr. Blount, we may be fellow-travelers a little longer."

Carrie stole a rapid glance at the handsome face before her, and then blushed, but with mortification, not pleasure, there was so little response to be read there to her father's suggestion. She turned the subject with an admirable imitation of perfect indifference. "Oh, by-the-way, Mr. Blount, I have something quite extraordinary to tell you! When papa went with Dr. G — into his consulting room, I was left alone in a rather bare salon, with only German books on the table, which I very slightly understood, so I was compelled to take an inventory of all the furniture and prints.--And what do you think I found? In a corner of the room, a bust quite strikingly, startlingly like you. I do assure you, it is your very counterpart. I wonder what great German philosopher or poet you have the honor of so strictly resembling. But you are ill; what is the matter? What shall I do? Here is the carriage; shall we wait, or drive back at once?" and she looked into his pale face with genuine anxiety.

"It is nothing of any consequence," gasped out Fred; "but I cannot return with you; I must speak to this doctor. Yes; I will join you again; you shall hear." And, having helped her into the carriage, he turned abruptly away.

"His hand is cold as death; he must be ill," sighed the poor girl.

"Nonsense, my dear Carrie," said her father, willing in his own immense mental relief to take cheerful views on all subjects. "Mr. Blount is much interested in all scientific matters, I know, and wants to talk some of them over with this excellent doctor. But I'll venture to predict we have him back again with us before the evening is over." And so Sir George and his fair daughter whirled away.

The interview between the benevolent doctor and Fred Blount was a long and a painful one. In after-years, Dr. G--'s eyes would moisten whenever he referred to it. A man's transport of grief is a harrowing thing to witness, nor is it often yielded to in the presence of another man. But when he saw again that bust, on which, when he saw it last, Lina's hand had rested — on which her dying hand rested, he was told, one short month ago — when he understood, for the first time, the meaning of those few farewell words, the fulness of the love that prompted the step she had taken — when he pictured her to himself alone with strangers, blind, desolate, thinking of him to the last, while he had often struggled to blame and to forget her — he fairly broke down beneath his agony of tenderness and regret. When he was able to listen, there was much of consolation in what the doctor had to tell him, though he could not then feel, and perhaps never felt, its full force. Lina had come to Dr. G--, a suppliant for a life-long asylum, in return for the sum of £1,500 with which she wished to endow his establishment. This was an unprecedented step; but hearing that she was an orphan, unmarried, and without any near relatives, he did not feel called upon to reject the proposition on which her mind seemed bent. Struck by her beauty and sadness, and by a refinement of manner that was the more striking, owing to the extreme simplicity of the black dress she wore, he was anxious to provide her with many comforts beyond those that could possibly fall to the share of the other inmates; but with the exception of a separate room she insisted upon faring in every respect as they did. Some months after her arrival, the doctor had been led by a slight change of symptoms to anticipate possible recovery. During this period of suspense, he had observed a very painful excitement in his patient's mind, and he had little doubt that she injured herself by her deep depression and constant weeping. Once or twice he had heard her express a dread lest she had been precipitate, lest she had decided wrongly; but she seemed averse to enter into any fuller explanation. When all hope was over, a great serenity seemed to settle upon her. She spent less time in her own room — she kept that bust there — and began to devote herself to those around her. Having acquired, with singular rapidity, an almost unprecedented skill in the different kinds of handiwork possible to the blind, she took pleasure in teaching the less dexterous of her fellow-sufferers. Dr. G — had often marveled at her persevering patience. Many of the children had been most deeply indebted to it. Her exquisite singing gave her a great hold upon the affections of all around her, and her influence was always used for good. She seemed to shed something of her own perfect peace and resignation on all the rest.

"You do not, then, believe that she was unhappy?" the young man asked — a strange jealousy lest she should have forgotten him mingling with his thankfulness.

The doctor did not believe that she was. He held it to be an invariable law, that benevolent and energetic exertion in the cause of others brought with it its own reward. Her face, of late years, he said, was always calm, and generally cheerful.

"Had she never revealed to him her past history?"

"Never; but she had promised to do so.--Some day," she had said, "when I am stronger in my faith and patience, when I am resigned to all my losses — some day, you shall know all." But that day had never come. A fever had broken out in the course of the summer amongst the children in the institution. Lina said she had no fear of infection, and she sat with some of the little creatures, soothing them, and singing to them to the last. She was the last case, and amongst the adults the only fatal one. The fever had run very high, and from the first the doctor had no hope.--There had been a good deal of wandering, but of a happy kind. She seemed to be reunited to some one very dear. When consciousness returned, she had asked to have the bust brought to her; and even when her hand was growing cold, it wandered lovingly over the lips and brow. The doctor had little thought he should ever see the original, and had meant always to keep the bust very carefully, for the dear Lina's sake.

That evening, Sir George Trevor received a few hurried, blotted lines; unforeseen circumstances had decided Mr. Blount to an immediate return to England. There was a temporary sadness in the pretty Carrie's heart, but nothing worse.

And Fred had had his desire of years granted — the mystery was cleared up — but he could not forget his Lina; nor, indeed, did he now wish to forget her; the thought of her sweet constancy and devoted self-sacrifice ennobled for him the whole of humanity; deepened his faith in its possibilities, stimulated his interest in its cause, To the present day, however, he believes that Lina was mistaken in her role resolve, and that it would have been happier for both if she had thrown herself more unreservedly upon his love. But one thing is certain; Fred Blount, as she foresaw, was not destined to succeed in the profession he had hastily chosen — he threw it up a few years after her disappearance and devoted himself to pursuits of a more congenial nature. But he has passed his life with little effect, little enterprise, little hope. Was Lina right or wrong?