"
He watched until in despair of her appearing again that evening,
and then strolled out into the night, feeling in his despondency
that no star in the summer sky was more unattainable than the poor
and orphaned girl, the impress of whose warm clasp still seemed
within his hand.
Chapter XXXI. An Emblem.
For some time Ida Mayhew neither heeded nor heard the choral music
in the parlor below, but at last a clearer, louder strain, in
which Van Berg's voice was pre-eminent, caught her attention and
she started up and listened at the window.
"He is singing songs of Heaven with Jennie Burton, and I--can there
be any worse perdition than this?" she said in a low, agonized
tone.
As if by a sudden impulse she quietly unfastened the door that led
to her father and mother's room. Perceiving that her mother was
not there, she stole noiselessly in, and turned up the lamp.
Mr. Mayhew reclined upon a lounge in the deep stupor of intoxication,
his dark hair streaked with gray falling across his face in a manner
that made it peculiarly ghastly and repulsive.
"This is my work," she groaned. "Jennie Burton made a noble-looking
man of him last evening.
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