194 



RECREA TION. 



They should have healed quickly and 

 would, but that his blood was disordered. 

 After a fortnight of unhealthy and pain- 

 fully inflamed granulation, blood poison- 

 ing set in and he lay dying ; dying in 

 pain of body and anguish of spirit, 

 tortured by remorse. The manifest hand 

 of God lay heavily upon him. Punish- 

 ment for the wrong done the mother 

 had come through the child. Moved 

 by Rob's earnest entreaties his father 

 consented to adopt the boy, the more 

 readily because he would soon be left 

 without an heir. But the sick man 

 would not be content with a promise. 



" Do it," he urged, with passionate 

 eagerness. " Send for the squire, send 

 for Nelly and the boy and do it now. 

 Doctor, don't let me die till I see it 

 done. I won't. Lord, forgive me ! I 

 won't! Mother, make them hurry. I want 

 my wife — my wife, I say — and my boy. 

 I shall curse you if they come too late." 



So he kept urging, every few minutes, 

 until they came. Then, first, he would 

 have the deed of adoption written 

 and executed. But here Nelly inter- 

 posed. She had been received by 

 the stricken parents with cold tolera- 

 tion ; so difficult is it to forgive one 

 from whom forgiveness should be sued. 

 But she bore herself with calm compas- 

 sion toward her dying husband and with 

 quiet dignity toward his parents. Now 

 was the time to assert herself. 



"Stop!" she said, firmly. "First, 

 Robert, do you acknowledge that we 

 two were married on the afternoon of 

 May 20th, 1861, by the Reverend James 

 Tarkin, at his parsonage in Eastville, 

 and that I am your lawful wife?" 



"I do, Nelly ; it is the truth ; I do. 

 And do you forgive me and still love 

 me?" 



" I forgive you, Robert," she replied 

 gently. Then she turned to the squire: 

 " Write it and let him sign it, with your- 

 self and the doctor as witnesses." 



"No, no," began old Mr. Glisson. 

 She turned upon him with scorn. 



'* This is my boy ; you cannot adopt 

 him without my consent. Until his 

 legitimacy is publicly cleared I refuse 

 my consent." 



" Write as she says ; it is the truth," 

 said the dying man. " Quick !" 



It required but three minutes to make 

 and execute this acknowledgment. Then 

 the adoption was completed. 



Mrs. Nelly Cole Glisson attended the 

 funeral as the publicly acknowledged 

 widow of the dead man. Some months 

 later she married a good man — a rich 

 farmer who had long wooed her, but to 

 whose generous and honorable suit she 

 could not listen while Robert Glisson 

 lived, she being a wife, denied and 

 without proofs upon which to sue for 

 divorce. 



Long the grim head of the giant wolf 

 hung on the wall in the Glisson house, 

 and underneath a printed card, bearing 

 the immortal lines : 



"This above all ; to thine own self be 



true, 

 And it must follow, as the night the 



day, 

 Thou canst hot then be false to any 



man." 



