Tempest and Sunshine

From the grassy hillside and bright green plains of Kentucky the frosts of

winter were gone. By the dancing brook and in the shady nooks of the quiet

valleys, the warm spring sun had sought out and brought to life thousands

of sweet wild blossoms, which in turn had faded away, giving place to

other flowers of a brighter and gayer hue.

Each night from the upper balcony of her father's handsome dwelling Fanny

watched in vain for the coming of Dr. Lacey, whose promised return had

long been delayed by the dangerous illness of his father. Over the wooded

hills the breath of summer was floating, hot, arid and laden with disease.

Death was abroad in the land, and as each day exaggerated rumors of the

havoc made by cholera in the sultry climate of Louisiana reached Fanny,

fearful misgivings filled her mind lest Dr. Lacey, too, should fall a

victim to the plague.

For herself she had no fears, though slowly but surely through her veins

the fever flame was creeping, scorching her blood, poisoning her breath

and burning her cheek, until her father, alarmed at her altered and

languid appearance, inquired for the cause of the change. "Nothing but a

slight headache," was the reply.

Next to the cholera, Mr. Middleton most feared the typhoid fever, several

cases of which had recently occurred in the neighborhood, and fearing lest

the disease might be stealing upon his darling, he proposed calling the

physician. But this Fanny would not suffer, and persisted in saying that

she was well, until at last she lay all day upon the sofa, and Aunt Katy,

when her favorite herb teas failed of effecting their wonted cure, shook

her head, saying, "I knew 'twould be so. I always telled you we couldn't

keep her long."

Dr. Gordon was finally called and pronounced her disease to be typhoid in

its worst form. Days went by, and so rapid was the progress of the fever

that Mr. Middleton trembled lest of him it had been decreed: "He shall be

childless." To Fanny the thought of death was familiar. For her it had no

terrors, and as her outward strength decayed, her faith in the Eternal

grew stronger and brighter, yet she could not die without an assurance

that again in the better world she would meet the father she so much

loved. For her mother she had no fears, for during many years she had been

a patient, self-denying Christian.

At first Mr. Middleton listened in silence to Fanny's gentle words of

entreaty, but when she spoke to him of her own death, and the love which

alone could sustain him then, he clasped her tightly to his heart, as if

his arm alone could keep her there forever, saying, "Oh, no, you must not

tell me that; you will not die. Even now you are better." And the anxious

father did try to deceive himself into the belief that Fanny was better,

but when each morning's light revealed some fresh ravage the disease had

made--when the flush on her cheek grew deeper and the light of her eye

wilder and more startling, an agonized fear held the old man's heart in

thrall. Many and many a weary night found him sleepless, as he wet his

pillow with tears. Not such tears as he wept when Richard Wilmot died, nor

such as fell upon the grave of his first-born, for oh, his grief then was

naught compared with what he now felt for his Sunshine, his idol, his

precious Fanny. "I cannot, cannot let her die," was the cry which hourly

welled up from the depths of that fond father's aching heart. "Take all,

take everything I own, but leave me Sunshine; she mustn't, mustn't die."