KITTY."Then said Raphael, I know, Tobias, that thy father will open his eyes."
KITTY.
"Then said Raphael, I know, Tobias, that thy father will open his eyes."
Theold man had spoken truly. A thousand joys of which he had never thought before, whose delight he had never even divined, bloomed in his lonely heart. As long as he should live, it was his wish that the family should continue to reside with him; and Molly was to become the guardian angel of the neighboring poor. She did not wait until they begged her assistance; she gave it unasked for to those who required it. She was a daily visitor in their humble homes, and when want and necessity were at last banished by her efforts, she taught the poor economy and neatness, through the beauty of her own example.
Wilkins, the cruel agent, was placed in a situation in which he could injure no one; but no revenge was wreaked upon him. He was not punished; he was permitted to retain his house and field, and a great portion of his former income. But his position as agent was given to one whom O'Neil had long known as a good, kind, and just man, entirely incapable of any act of cruelty.
During three peaceful years, the old landlord continued to enjoy his quiet life of domestic bliss. He died tranquilly in the arms of his son-in-law, to whom he gave the whole of his estate. O'Neil and his daughters soon after left this property in the charge of a good overseer, to whom the strongest commands were given never to drive or distress any of the tenants on account of their being in arrears for rent. O'Neil was exceedingly desirous to visit the property which had been for many, many years in the possession of his own family, where he had played through the glad days of his happy childhood, and which, through the wonderful providence of a kind God, he could again call his own.
A far more lovely landscape surrounded Molly, so susceptible to all the beauties with which Nature decks the earth. Rich grain-fields waved around her; fertile meadows, with their deep-green carpets overgrown with many-colored flowers, lay at her feet; and orchards, in which the sunny-hued fruit burdened the laden branches until they kissed the ground, greeted her happy walks. Under the direction of O'Neil, a row of neat dwelling-houses rose around them, the occupants of which became far more economical and industrious, when they saw that part of the fruit of their labors was for themselves and their children, and that the landlord had no idea of appropriating the whole of their hard earnings to his own use. How happy was Molly, when she saw these healthful and powerful men, from whose bronzed faces content and happiness smiled, and who were now neither wretched nor oppressed, returning with cheerful songs to their expectant wives and playful children!
Still a heavy cloud sometimes rested upon her fair young brow. Not seldom gushed thehot tears down her now rosy cheeks, when she looked upon Kitty, who, as she grew older, appeared to feel more and more deeply the many renunciations which the want of sight inflicted upon her. The melancholy plaints of the little girl pained her affectionate heart. Nothing could be more touching than to hear Kitty say,—
"O Molly, if I could only see you and my father,—only once! only once!—I would ask no more! I would gaze upon you until I had imprinted every line of your face upon my soul, and then I would cheerfully close my eyes again in their dreary darkness,—close them for ever, Molly, with your image in my heart!"
One day, when Molly was visiting a school which she had established for the instruction of the poor in basket-weaving and other light arts, she heard a beggar, whom she had at various times assisted, telling many wonderful things about a young physician who had lately established himself in a neighboring town, and who, according to his account, had already restored many blind people to sight. She remainedstanding by the threshold, absorbed in the deepest attention, as long as the narration lasted. She then approached him rapidly, and, while her heart beat high with expectation and new-born hope, she said,—
"Tell me, I beg of you, tell me if what you have been relating is indeed the truth? If it is really true, if my little sister should receive her sight, I would never forget that I had first heard of this happy possibility through you; and, full of gratitude to you, I would take care of you as long as your life should last."
"Certainly, all I have said is true," answered the old beggar. "I have seen little Jack sitting at the church door as blind as a post, and now he sees as bright and clear as anybody who has always had two good, sound eyes in his head."
Molly ran directly to her father with this joyful news. But her father shook his head, and said earnestly to her,—
"Do not suffer this sweet hope to take such entire possession of you, my kind child! Above all, say nothing about it to Kitty; for thepoor little blind girl would suffer tenfold more if she should nourish such a hope, and be doomed to meet with a bitter disappointment. Yet it is possible it may succeed! Kitty was not born blind; she was more than a year old when she lost her sight."
When he saw how deeply Molly was distressed by his want of faith in the possibility of Kitty's restoration to sight, he tried to calm her anxiety, and continued,—
"If it should succeed, Molly, who would be happier, who would be more grateful to the good God above, than myself? I would joyfully give up the half of my property, nay, the whole of it, Molly, to open again the sightless eyes of our poor little Kitty! We will set out to-morrow, at the earliest dawn of day, to seek the physician who has given sight to the blind!"
The sun had not yet entirely risen, when Molly, after a sleepless night, was already stirring through the house, making the necessary preparations for their contemplated journey. She hurried on everything with as much eagerness as if her life depended upon theloss of a single hour, and succeeded in stimulating the slow coachman to an extraordinary rapid gait in comparison with his usually slow pace. The carriage rolled down the hill upon which the house was built just as the first glittering rays of the sun filled the valley with their rosy light. Molly held her little sister in her arms. Sometimes she pressed her wildly, as if in fear, to her breast; sometimes she looked long and deeply into her large, sad eyes, as if it would be possible to read in them the success or failure of the contemplated experiment. Tortured by the most restless impatience, she asked the old beggar (who had taken his seat by the coachman to show him the way) every five minutes if they were not almost there.
"We soon will be! We soon will be!" was his dry answer; but to the excited Molly, so full of hope and fear, this word "soon" seemed to cover an eternity. Always so merciful, both to man and beast, she would not spare a single moment to the poor horses to rest.
"Only drive on!—drive on!" she begged;"the poor, tired horses shall have a good rest and plenty of food after we are once there!"
In vain Kitty asked where they were going, what was the aim of their journey, and what made Molly so impatient. "You will soon know all about it," was the only answer she received. At last—at last—the travellers stopped before the house pointed out by the beggar!
They found the physician to be a young and amiable man, who, after a short examination of the sightless eyes, said he felt certain the operation would succeed, and that it would prove neither difficult nor dangerous. But he said he would not like to undertake it until Kitty had been for a few days under his care.
The few days demanded by the young physician were soon over. Resting in the powerful arms of her father, with Molly standing pale and trembling by her side, Kitty awaited the eventful operation.
"You need not be afraid, my little angel," said the doctor, consolingly; "I will not hurt you much."
"Oh! even if it should hurt me very much," answered the gentle child, "what pain could possibly equal the bliss which I expect to receive from your skilful hands? To see my father, and my Molly,—my Molly!—how long have I yearned with a sick heart to see my Molly!"
The physician raised his hand,—touched the darkened eyeballs. A loud shriek of joy,—another and another,—announced the complete success of the delicate operation. But Kitty was forced to conquer her wild longing to gaze on the faces she loved; for after a single fleeting second, the physician carefully bound a thick band of linen round her head, that the tender organs might become gradually accustomed to the light and air.
No pen could describe her rapture, when, after the removal of the veiling band, she lay for the first time with the full power of sight in the arms of her loved ones! Tenderly and lovingly, she embraced them again and again; now she gazed into the joy-raying eyes of her happy father,—now into the deep, blue, tender eyes of the beloved Molly,—as if to makeup, in the fulness of her bliss, for the long time she had been deprived of this source of delight. Then she suddenly turned round to the young physician who was standing behind her, and who had been deeply touched by this exciting scene.
"How shall I thank you?" she cried, pressing his hand to her innocent lips, which he vainly struggled to withdraw. "O, let me kiss your hand," she softly prayed, "let me kiss the dear hand which has enabled me to see my father and my Molly; and tell us how we can make you happy! We can offer you no fitting reward; for what price would be sufficient to pay you for the benefit you have conferred upon us? Only some pledge of our eternal gratitude, some sign of undying remembrance from the family whom you have made so blessed, ought we to give you!"
The young man bent down to hide his tears, kissed the grateful child, and murmured lightly: "Your joy, Kitty, which has rendered this hour the happiest of my whole life, and whose remembrance will always be dear to my heart, has already been to me a high and holy reward!But," he continued, in a voice scarcely audible, and broken by emotion, "there is a still higher, a still dearer reward, which I would willingly owe to your prayers for me, Kitty! Ask your dear father to receive me as his son! Ask the beloved sister if she will trust the happiness of her life in my hands! Kitty, plead for me!"
He could say no more; he was choked by his emotions. But Molly had understood his broken words; covered with blushes, she flew to her father, who took her by the unresisting hand, and tenderly led her to the young physician.
"You have, indeed, chosen the most precious reward," said O'Neil, "yet I willingly give it to you, for you seem to me to be a man of noble character. The manner in which you practise your benevolent art is the surest proof to me of your kind heart!"
"Dare I hope that your cherished daughter does not withhold her consent?" asked the young man, with trembling voice, as he pleadingly, yet tenderly, took the hand of the maiden.
Candid as she always was, Molly answered softly: "In restoring my little sister to sight, you have made me very happy; yet I must frankly confess that it is not gratitude alone which binds me to you. Another voice speaks to me in the depths of my soul,—the voice of affection; it whispers me that you deserve my confidence. Could you possibly deceive me?"
Then the young man raised his hand, as if to take a solemn oath.
"Never! never!" with clear and loud, yet solemn and tender tone, he said. "Nothing shall ever part me from thee, no change in destiny shall sever me from thy side! I feel within myself the strength to offer everything up for thee, to conquer all things through my love for thee! Thy holy confidence in me shall never be deceived! Undying love and tenderness for thee, my Molly, shall ever fill the heart in which thou hast trusted!"
He nobly kept his plighted word; and Molly never had any cause to repent of the confidence which she had reposed in him.
O'Neil lived to attain a great age. Helived to see little Kitty married to an excellent young man, who managed his estate with the greatest care, when he grew too old and weak to attend to it himself. And when at last the death-angel came to call him to a higher life above, he blessed with his dying voice his sons, his daughters, and his grandchildren. But the last pressure of the stiffening hand, the last words from the lips that were to open no more on earth, were for his own Molly.
"Molly," he painfully sighed, "I can see thy sweet face no longer, for my eyes are darkened by the night of death, but thy image still floats before my parting soul. Thou wert my consolation and support when the hand of the Lord rested heavily upon me. Thy confidence that all would yet be well never wavered; thy gentleness and thy loveliness touched and softened the heart of the long defiant one, who had before scorned all the warnings sent from Heaven, and changed his angry hatred into wonder and love!
"Next to God, from whom all good gifts come, I thank thee, my dearly beloved child,that the rough and thorny path of my life was changed into an earthly paradise, which leads to heaven! Molly! my Molly! may thy children resemble thee, and make thee as happy as thou hast made thy father!"
THE YOUNG ARTIST.