and, looking over his shoulder, fell so close to Sunny, that his old belief drew its veil across his eyes for a moment, and he started at the sight of what he dreaded,— a Shadow haunting Sunny.
Then,—though this first dread passed away,—slowly, but creeping on with unfailing certainty, the Shadow returned. It fell like a brooding storm over the fireside of home; he fancied a like shadow following his mother’s steps, darkening his baby-sister’s smile; and as if in revenge for so long an absence, the Shadow forced itself upon him more strenuously than ever, till poor Roger Pierce was like a bruised and beaten child,—too sore to have peace or rest, too sensitive to bear any remedy for his ailment, and too petulant to receive or expect sympathy from any other and more gentle nature than his own.
It was long before the Shadow made itself felt by Sunny. She never saw it as others did. If its chill passed over her warm rosy face, she stole up softly to her brother, and, with a look of pure childish love, put her hand in his, and said softly,
“Poor Roger!” or, with a keener sense of the Presence, forbore to touch him, but played off her kitten’s merriest tricks before him, or rolled her tiny hoop with Shouts of laughter across the old housedog as he slept on the grass, looking vainly for the smile Roger had always given to her baby plays before.
So by degrees she went back to her own pleasures, full of tender thought for every living thing, and a loving consciousness of their wants and ways. Her lisping voice chattered brook-like to birds and bees; her lip curled grievously over the broken wing of a painted moth, or the struggles of a drowning fly; in Nature’s company she played as with an infant ever divine; and no darkness assailed the never-weary child.
But Roger grew daily closer to his Shadow, and gave himself up to its dominion. till his mother saw the bondage, and tried, mourning, every art and device to win him away from the evil spirit, but tried in vain. So they lived till Sunny was four years old, when suddenly, one bright day in June, she left the roses in her garden with broken stems, but ungathered, and, tottering into the house, fell across the threshold, flushed and sleepy,—as they who lifted her saw at once, in the first stage of a fever.
This unexpected blow once more severed Roger from bis Shadow. He watched his little sister with a heart full of anxious regret, yet so fully wrapt in her wants and danger, that the gloomy Shadow, which looked afar off at his self-accusations, dared not once intrude.
At length that day of crisis came, the pause of fever and delirium, desired, yet dreaded, by every trembling, fearful heart that hung over the child’s pillow. If she slept, the physician said, her fate hung on the waking; life or death would seal her when sleep resigned its claim. It was early morning when this sentence was given; in an hour’s time the fever had subsided, the flush passed from Sunny’s cheek, and she slept, watched breathlessly by Roger and his mother. The curtains of the room were half drawn to give the little creature air, and there rustled lightly through them a low south wind, hearing the delicate perfume of blossoms, and the lulling murmur of bees singing at their sweet toil.
Roger was weary with watching; the chiming sounds of Summer, the low ticking of the old clock on the stairs, and the utter quiet within, soothed him to slumber; his head bent forward and rested on the bedside; he fell asleep, and in his sleep he dreamed.
Over Sunny’s pillow (for in this dream he seemed to himself waking and watching) he saw a hovering spirit, the incarnate shape of Light, gazing at the sleeping child with ineffable tenderness; but its keen eyes caught the aspect of Roger’s Shadow; the pure lineaments glowed with something more divinely awful than anger, and with levelled lance it assailed that evil Presence and bore it to the ground; but the Shadow slipped aside from the spear, and cowered into distance; the angelic face saddened, and, stooping
