It was, as it were, a sacred bond between them--an
indissoluble tie. I am convinced that many of my readers have
frequently felt a lively and almost inexplicable pleasure in watering
a flower dried up by the scorching sun, and, in seeing it revive,
have felt as if benefited themselves. What pleasure, then, it must
have given to Desclieux and Louisa to see their plant raise its
sickly leaves once more!
At length the wind began to rise lightly, and the vessel moved,
though slowly. Desclieux was ill--in a burning fever; but he
continued to share with the plant his allowance of water; and Louisa
added hers. It increased their happiness that it owed its recovery to
their mutual self-denial; and it seemed as if their household life
had begun in a common endurance of suffering.
The breeze still freshened: and when the vessel anchored in the port
of St Pierre, there was not a single drop of water on board. But the
coffee-plant was saved; the colony enriched by it; Desclieux's pledge
redeemed; and, three months after, Louisa was his wife.
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