The Choir Invisible

"It is to you soley that I owe the honour of having enjoyed the personal

consideration of the President. His reception of me had been in the highest

degree ceremonious and distant; but upon my mentioning the names of father

and brother, his manner grew warm: I had touched that trait of affectionate

faithfulness with which he has always held on to every tie of kin and

friendship. That your father should have fought against him and your brother

under him made no difference in his memory. He had many questions to ask

regarding you--your happiness, your family--to some of which I could return

the answers that gave him pleasure or left him thoughtful. Upon my setting

out from Mount Vernon, his last words made me the bearer of his message to

you, the child of an old comrade and the sister or a gallant young soldier."

Beyond this there was nothing personal in his letter and nothing as to his

return.

When she next heard, he was in Philadelphia, giving his attention to the

choosing and shipment of the books. One piece of news, imparted in perfect

calmness by him, occasioned her acute disappointment. His expectation of

coming into possession of some ten thousand dollars had not quite been

realized. An appeal had been taken and the case was yet pending. He was

pleased neither with the good faith nor with the good sense of the counsel

engaged; and he would remain on the spot himself during the trial. He added

that he was lodging with a pleasant family. Then followed the long winter

during which all communication between the frontier and the seaboard was

interrupted. When spring returned at last and the earliest travel was

resumed, other letters came, announcing that the case had gone against him,

and that he had nothing.

She sold at once all the new linen that had been woven, got together all the

money she otherwise could and despatched it with Major Falconer's consent,

begging him to make use of it for the sake of their friendship--not to be

foolish and proud: there were lawyers' fees it could help to pay, or other

plain practical needs it might cover. But when the post-rider returned, he

brought it all back with a letter of gratitude: only, he couldn't accept it.

And the messenger had been warned not to let it be known that he was in

prison for debt on account of these same suit expenses; for having from the

first formed a low opinion of his counsel's honour and ability and having

later expressed this opinion at the door of the court-room with a good deal

of fire and a good deal of contempt, and being furthermore unable and

unwilling to pay the exorbitant fee, he had been promptly clapped into jail

by the incensed attorney, as well for his poverty and for his temper and his

pride.