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"How are you, Brantley?" and then his eye went quickly over the crew of the schooner, then glanced through the open skylight into the little cabin, and a hopeful, expectant look in his face died away. "Very well, thank you, Latham. But what is wrong? you look worried." "Come on board," said the captain of the brig, quietly, "and I'll tell you."
"His honor is unstained," said the friend, with some warmth. "In the degree that a man grows eager in pursuit, he is apt to grow blind to things collateral, and less concerned about the principles involved." "In some cases that may be true, but is hardly probable in the case of Brantley. I do not believe that he has swerved from integrity in anything."
And now as he sits in the doorway of his thatched house, and gazes dreamily out upon the long curve of creamy beach and wind-swayed line of palms that fringe the leeward side of his island home, Brantley passes a brown hand slowly up and down his sun-bronzed cheek, and thinks of the past.
I did not sign the petition, for I did not think it necessary, and believed the more I was kept out of sight the better. We must hope for the best, speak as little and act as discreetly as possible. "The reverend Dr. Brantley was invited by the faculty of the college to deliver the baccalaureate sermon next June, and I invited him and his daughter, in the event of his accepting, to stay with us.
She dropped on the sand at his feet and clasped his knees, and a long, wailing note of grief rang out "AUE! AUE! my husband! if it so be that thou dost not heed the voices that call in the night, then, out of thy love for me and our child, let me come also. Then, if evil befall thee, let us perish together." Brantley raised his hand and pointed to the bowed and weeping figure.
He buried himself in listless idleness at Claremont for some time: then ordered his horse one day, rode to a neighboring town and made arrangements for the sale of his property with much the same feeling as if he had ordered the execution of his mother. It was when he returned weary and depressed from this excursion that he found a note from Mrs. Brantley awaiting him.
Springing to her feet, hat in hand, and placing her two hands on his now erect shoulders, she looked into his face darker far than her own and said with a smile "Behold, Paranili, thy PULOU is finished, save for a band of black PU'AVA which thou shalt give me from the store." "Mine?" said Brantley, in pretended ignorance. "Why labour so for me? Are there not hats in plenty on Vahitahi?"
She was an adorable goddess whom any man might be content to worship from a distance, he thought; and he was preparing to go and sun himself in the glance of her eyes, which seemed like bits of heaven in their blueness and their fairness, when Mrs. Brantley touched his arm and bade him take a newly-arrived piece of white muslin in to dinner.
It so happened that I met Brantley a short time afterwards. The circumstances were favorable, and our interview unreserved. He had sold his house, and a large part of the handsome furniture it contained, and was living in a humbler dwelling. I referred to his changed condition, and spoke of it with regret. "There is no gratuitous evil," he remarked. "I have long been satisfied on that head.
"Poor Luita," said Brantley, stroking Doris's pale cheek, "she did not know you were my sister. I never told her, Doris." "She is a very beautiful woman, Fred. They told me at Tahiti that she was called the pearl of Vahitahi; and oh! my dear, if we can but find her, I will make her love me for your sake."
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