Chapter XX

Luzerne’s failure to marry Annette and re-instatement of his wife was the sensation of the season.  Some pitied Annette; others blamed Luzerne, but Annette found, as a teacher, opportunity among the freedmen to be a friend and sister to those whose advantages had been less than hers.  Life had once opened before her like a fair vision enchanted with delight, but her beautiful dream had faded like sun rays mingling with the shadows of night.  It was the great disappointment of her life, but she roused up her soul to bear suffering and to be true to duty, and into her soul came a joy which was her strength.  Little children learned to love her, the street gamins knew her as their friend, aged women blessed the dear child as they called her, who planned for their comfort when the blasts of winter were raging around their homes.  Before her great trial she had found her enjoyment more in her intellectual than spiritual life, but when every earthly prop was torn away, she learned to lean her fainting head on Christ the corner-stone and the language of her heart was “Nearer to thee, e’en though it be a cross that raiseth me.”  In surrendering her life she found a new life and more abundant life in every power and faculty of her soul.

Luzerne went South and found Marie’s mother who had mourned her child as dead.  Tenderly they watched over her, but the seeds of death were sown too deeply in her wasted frame for recovery, and she wasted away and sank into a premature grave, leaving Luzerne the peaceful satisfaction of having smoothed her passage to the grave, and lengthened with his care, her declining days.  Turning from her grave he plunged into active life.  It was during the days of reconstruction when tricksters and demagogues were taking advantage of the ignorance and inexperience of the newly enfranchised citizens.  Honorable and upright, Luzerne preserved his integrity among the corruptions of political life.  Men respected him too much to attempt to swerve him from duty for personal advantage.  No bribes ever polluted his hands, nor fraud, nor political chicanery ever stained his record.

He was the friend and benefactor of his race, giving them what gold is ever too poor to buy—­the benefit of a good example and a noble life, and earned for himself the sobriquet by which he was called, “honest Luzerne.”  And yet at times he would turn wistfully to Annette and the memory of those glad, bright days when he expected to clasp hands with her for life.  At length his yearning had become insatiable and he returned to A. P.

Laura Lasette had married Charley Cooper who by patience and industry had obtained a good position in the store of a merchant who was manly enough to let it be known that he had Negro blood in his veins, but that he intended to give him a desk and place in his establishment and he told his employees that he intended to employ him, and if they were not willing to work with him they could leave.  Charley was promoted just the same as others according to his merits.  Time had dealt kindly with Mrs. Lasette, as he scattered his silvery crystals amid her hair, and of her it might be said,