When the morning came, however, the unfortunate girl was raving in all the delirium of fever, which for weeks baffled medical skill. Youth at length triumphed over disease, and she was once more able to leave her bed. During this time she had made known at intervals, her sad history to the good woman of the house, and the benevolent stranger who had snatched her from a watery grave.
Every where the latter sought to discover the perfidious Belmont, and on pursuing his inquiries for the grandparents of the wretched girl, he learned that grief at the desertion of their child, had broken the old people’s hearts; first the father, then the mother, had been borne to their long homes. A distant relative had seized upon the little homestead, and already a flaunting sign usurped the head of good old Penn, which for more than half a century had smiled benignly down upon travelers.
Effie begged to remain with Mrs. Wing, who kept a small thread and needle store in —— Lane, near the river; and the kind woman felt so much pity for her lonely, unprotected situation, that she readily granted her request. She was soon able to assist in the labors of the shop, and to make herself in many ways useful. Of the kind stranger she saw but little, but from Mrs. Wing she learned that he had generously defrayed all the expenses of her illness. He came but seldom, but when he did, he spoke to her so kindly, encouraged her with so much gentleness, soothing her sorrows, and leading her mind to that Higher source where alone she might look for comfort, that Effie regarded him in the light of a superior being.
Thus months rolled on, and no tidings of Belmont reached Effie. One morning, as she stood arranging a few fancy articles upon the broad window-seat in a manner which might display their beauty to the best advantage, she threw up the sash for a moment to inhale the fine breeze which came sweeping up from the river. The day was lovely. The gentle undulating surface of the Delaware, cleft by a hundred flashing oars, with the keels of many noble vessels buried in her sparkling tide, their white sails swelling to the breeze, stretched before her in beauty, while above, cloudless and serene was the blue vault of heaven.