The Acorn; An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine Devoted to Literature and Art Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... last my lord's mother was angry and threatened my child, so that she left her home with the Englishman who had won her love a year before. We did not hear of this at the Chateau and the Count was in Paris; until one day I had a message from the Convent. My child was there and was dying. The nuns had sent for me to nurse her. It was night when I got to the Convent. The chapel bell was tolling very slowly, the white stone stairs shone coldly in the moonlight, and as I followed a sister along the corridor, nuns in their black dresses looked out at me here and there, and then hurried away. Just as I reached her room the door opened and an old nun came out carrying something small covered with a white cloth. It was her baby, and it was dead. She had a fever and she did not know me at first, but talked English so prettily, always English, until the fever left her. At last I learned what had happened to her, when she lay white and weak, and whispered half to me and half to herself in the evenings. She had tried so hard to love her husband, she was just beginning to love him a little, and but for his mother she would have had courage to remain and try still. The mother frightened her, and the young cousin at her side per-suaded her and she did not understand what she was doing until she was away with him--then she understood. She fell ill soon, and he left her--she asked him to leave her, all her love for him was gone, and she came to the Convent to the old, kind nuns. She was only a child, and her child heart had had a woman's trouble to bear, and that had killed her. We sent for her husband, when we knew she was dying, and he came. He thought she was asleep when he saw her, for her head was turned aside on the pillow to hide the tears that...