When it is dark and lonely and all but you asleep,
she'll sit upon your pillow and whisper continually, 'Give Miggie
up; give Miggie up,' or if you don't, and Miggie's there beside
you, Nina'll stand between you; a mighty, though invisible shield,
and you'll feel it's but a mockery, the calling her your wife when
her love is given to another.
"Good bye, now, Richard, good bye. My brain begins to buzz, my
hand to tremble. The lines all run together, and I am most as
blind as you. God bless you, Mr. Richard; bless you any way, but a
heap more if you give Miggie up. May be He'll give you back your
sight to pay for Miggie. I should rather have it than a wife who
did not love me; and I'll tease Him till He'll let me bring it to
you some day.
"Good bye, again, good bye.
"NINA ARTHUR BERNARD."
The night was nearly worn away ere the letter was finished; and
Nina's eyes flashed with unwonted fire as laughing aloud at the
Arthur added to her name, she laid it away beneath her pillow and
then tried herself to sleep. But this last was impossible, and
when the morning broke she was so much worse that the old nurse
trembled lest her master should censure her severely for having
yielded to her young mistress's whim.
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