Uncle Tom's Cabin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 704 pages of information about Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Uncle Tom's Cabin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 704 pages of information about Uncle Tom's Cabin.

In a few days the St. Clare family were back again in the city; Augustine, with the restlessness of grief, longing for another scene, to change the current of his thoughts.  So they left the house and garden, with its little grave, and came back to New Orleans; and St. Clare walked the streets busily, and strove to fill up the chasm in his heart with hurry and bustle, and change of place; and people who saw him in the street, or met him at the cafe, knew of his loss only by the weed on his hat; for there he was, smiling and talking, and reading the newspaper, and speculating on politics, and attending to business matters; and who could see that all this smiling outside was but a hollowed shell over a heart that was a dark and silent sepulchre?

“Mr. St. Clare is a singular man,” said Marie to Miss Ophelia, in a complaining tone.  “I used to think, if there was anything in the world he did love, it was our dear little Eva; but he seems to be forgetting her very easily.  I cannot ever get him to talk about her.  I really did think he would show more feeling!”

“Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me,” said Miss Ophelia, oracularly.

“O, I don’t believe in such things; it’s all talk.  If people have feeling, they will show it,—­they can’t help it; but, then, it’s a great misfortune to have feeling.  I’d rather have been made like St. Clare.  My feelings prey upon me so!”

“Sure, Missis, Mas’r St. Clare is gettin’ thin as a shader.  They say, he don’t never eat nothin’,” said Mammy.  “I know he don’t forget Miss Eva; I know there couldn’t nobody,—­dear, little, blessed cretur!” she added, wiping her eyes.

“Well, at all events, he has no consideration for me,” said Marie; “he hasn’t spoken one word of sympathy, and he must know how much more a mother feels than any man can.”

“The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” said Miss Ophelia, gravely.

“That’s just what I think.  I know just what I feel,—­nobody else seems to.  Eva used to, but she is gone!” and Marie lay back on her lounge, and began to sob disconsolately.

Marie was one of those unfortunately constituted mortals, in whose eyes whatever is lost and gone assumes a value which it never had in possession.  Whatever she had, she seemed to survey only to pick flaws in it; but, once fairly away, there was no end to her valuation of it.

While this conversation was taking place in the parlor another was going on in St. Clare’s library.

Tom, who was always uneasily following his master about, had seen him go to his library, some hours before; and, after vainly waiting for him to come out, determined, at last, to make an errand in.  He entered softly.  St. Clare lay on his lounge, at the further end of the room.  He was lying on his face, with Eva’s Bible open before him, at a little distance.  Tom walked up, and stood by the sofa.  He hesitated; and, while he was hesitating, St. Clare suddenly raised himself up.  The honest face, so full of grief, and with such an imploring expression of affection and sympathy, struck his master.  He laid his hand on Tom’s, and bowed down his forehead on it.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.