“It wouldn’t be the first time a little child had been used to instruct an old disciple, if it were so,” said St. Clare.

CHAPTER XXVI

Death

     Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
     In life’s early morning, hath hid from our eyes.*

     * “Weep Not for Those,” a poem by Thomas Moore (1779-1852).

Eva’s bed-room was a spacious apartment, which, like all the other robins in the house, opened on to the broad verandah.  The room communicated, on one side, with her father and mother’s apartment; on the other, with that appropriated to Miss Ophelia.  St. Clare had gratified his own eye and taste, in furnishing this room in a style that had a peculiar keeping with the character of her for whom it was intended.  The windows were hung with curtains of rose-colored and white muslin, the floor was spread with a matting which had been ordered in Paris, to a pattern of his own device, having round it a border of rose-buds and leaves, and a centre-piece with full-flown roses.  The bedstead, chairs, and lounges, were of bamboo, wrought in peculiarly graceful and fanciful patterns.  Over the head of the bed was an alabaster bracket, on which a beautiful sculptured angel stood, with drooping wings, holding out a crown of myrtle-leaves.  From this depended, over the bed, light curtains of rose-colored gauze, striped with silver, supplying that protection from mosquitos which is an indispensable addition to all sleeping accommodation in that climate.  The graceful bamboo lounges were amply supplied with cushions of rose-colored damask, while over them, depending from the hands of sculptured figures, were gauze curtains similar to those of the bed.  A light, fanciful bamboo table stood in the middle of the room, where a Parian vase, wrought in the shape of a white lily, with its buds, stood, ever filled with flowers.  On this table lay Eva’s books and little trinkets, with an elegantly wrought alabaster writing-stand, which her father had supplied to her when he saw her trying to improve herself in writing.  There was a fireplace in the room, and on the marble mantle above stood a beautifully wrought statuette of Jesus receiving little children, and on either side marble vases, for which it was Tom’s pride and delight to offer bouquets every morning.  Two or three exquisite paintings of children, in various attitudes, embellished the wall.  In short, the eye could turn nowhere without meeting images of childhood, of beauty, and of peace.  Those little eyes never opened, in the morning light, without falling on something which suggested to the heart soothing and beautiful thoughts.

The deceitful strength which had buoyed Eva up for a little while was fast passing away; seldom and more seldom her light footstep was heard in the verandah, and oftener and oftener she was found reclined on a little lounge by the open window, her large, deep eyes fixed on the rising and falling waters of the lake.