Distance lent enchantment. Now that the missionaries were hundreds of miles away, the labors of the mission seemed easy of accomplishment, and the daily, hourly difficulties and hindrances dwindled into insignificance.
Scarcely a month later and Philip St. Leger bent in thankfulness over a little daughter, which the doctor said might live.
"We will call her Della," said Philip to his wife.
"Not Della, but Althea. I give her to God, Philip. May she do for Him what I have not been able."
Philip had turned to his wife that he might the better catch her feeble whispers. O, the dread that rushed through his heart! A ghastly pallor was spread over the face, a convulsive spasm distorted for a moment the sweet mouth.
"I am going--O, Philip," she said, wildly, and ere he had time to call on God for mercy she was gone.
"Good God, doctor, is she really dead?" cried Philip, as soon as he could speak to the physician upon the opposite side, whose fingers now let fall the pulseless wrist.
"All is over," answered the physician, sadly.
"Why did you not call me sooner if you saw the danger? How dared you not inform me at once?" demanded Philip.
"Pray be quiet, my dear sir. It was very sudden--entirely unanticipated--although I had been suspecting disease of the heart. Her lungs were a good deal affected, but her heart I think the immediate cause of her death. Otherwise, she was doing nicely, bravely, better than could be expected. You have met with a great loss, sir--a wonderful loss--your wife was a noble woman. God help you!"
Della St. Leger was buried by the side of the first and third Mrs. Adams, the second having been buried on an island in the sea. The latter had been a Southern lady, and had brought with her a colored woman, at that time her slave. This person, Minerva by name, remained still an invaluable member of Dr. Adams' household. To her care the little motherless Althea was entrusted; and Philip St. Leger, with what heart may be imagined, went back alone to his dreary mission.
We have given a more thorough retrospect of the missionary's antecedents than did he to his friend on that memorable night at Kennons. But the gleam of his flashing eye, and the glow of the sparkling flame into which he gazed was like flint to flint; and to us was it given mysteriously to read the fiery flashes thus revealed.