When the heart lay wide open, before it had grown upon and closed around particular objects, it could take strength and cheer from a hundred connections that now seem colder than ice. And now those particular objects-alas for you! are failing. - What anxiety pursues you! How you struggle to fancy there is no danger; how she struggles to persuade you there is no danger! How it grates now on your ear, the toil and turmoil of the city! It was music when you were alone; it was pleasant even, from the din you were elaborating comforts for the cherished objects; when you had such sweet escape as evening drew on. Now it maddens you to see the world careless while you are steeped in care. They hustle you in the street; they smile at you across the table; they bow carelessly over the way; they do not know what canker is at your heart. The undertaker comes with his bill for the dead boy's funeral. He knows your grief; he is respectful. You bless him in your soul. You wish the laughing streetgoers were all undertakers. Your eye follows the physician as he leaves your house is he wise? you ask yourself; is he prudent? is he the best? Did he never fail? is he never forgetful? And now the hand that touches yours, is it no thinner, no whiter than yesterday? Sunny days come when she revives; color comes back; she breathes freer; she picks flowers; she meets you with a smile: hope lives again. But the next day of storm she is fallen. She cannot talk even ; she presses your hand. You hurry away from business before your time. What matter for clients, who is to reap the rewards? whose eye will it brighten ? whose is the inheritance ? You find her propped with pillows; she is looking over a little picture-book bethumbed by the dear boy she has lost. She hides it in her chair; she has pity on you. - Another day of revival, when the spring sun shines, and flowers open out of doors; she leans on your arm, and strolls into the garden where the first birds are singing. Listen to them with her ; - what memories are in bird-songs! You need not shudder at her tears, they are tears of thanksgiving. Press the hand that lies light upon your arm, and you, too, thank God, while yet you may ! You are early home, — mid-afternoon. Your step is not light; it is heavy, terrible. They have sent for you. She is lying down; her eyes half closed; her breathing long and interrupted. She hears you; her eyes open; you put your hand in hers; yours trembles: hers does not. Her lips move; it is your name. says; "Be strong," she "God will help you!" She presses harder hand: your "Adieu!" A long breath another; you are alone again. No tears now; poor man! You cannot find them! - Again home early. There is a smell of varnish in your house. A coffin is there; they have clothed the body in decent grave-clothes, and the undertaker is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tiptoe. Does he fear to waken her? He asks you a simple question about the inscription upon the plate, rubbing it with his coat-cuff. You look him straight in the eye; you motion to the door; you dare not speak. He takes up his hat and glides out stealthful as a cat. The man has done his work well for all. It is a nice coffin, a very nice coffin! Pass your hand over it, how smooth! - - Some sprigs of mignonette are lying carelessly in a little gilt-edged saucer. She loved mignonette. It is a good stanch table the coffin rests on: it is your table; you are a housekeeper, a man of family! Ay, of family! - keep down outcry, or the nurse will be in. Look over at the pinched features; is this all that is left of her? And where is your heart now? No, don't thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle your lip, nor grate your teeth together. If you could only weep! - Another day. The coffin is gone out. The stupid mourners have wept, — what idle tears! She, with your crushed heart, has gone out! Will you have pleasant evenings at your home now? Go into your parlor that your prim housekeeper has made comfortable with clean hearth and blaze of sticks. Sit down in your chair; there is another velvetcushioned one, over against yours, empty. You press your fingers on your eyeballs, as if you would press out something that hurt the brain; but you cannot. Your head leans upon your hand; your eye rests upon the flashing blaze. Ashes always come after blaze. Go now into the room where she was sick, softly, lest the prim housekeeper come after. They have put new dimity upon her chair; they have hung new curtains over the bed. They have removed from the stand its phials and silver bell; they have put a little vase of flowers in their place; the perfume will not offend the sick sense now. They have half opened the window, that the room so long closed may have air. It will not be too cold. She is not there. O God! thou who shorn lamb, be kind! dost temper the wind to the The embers were dark. I stirred them; there was no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my tenant's chamber had struck one. I dashed a tear or two from my eyes: how they came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of thanks, that such desolation had not yet come nigh me; and a prayer of hope, that it might never come. In a half-hour more I was sleeping soundly. My revery was ended. JONG time ago," some day this month, I should remember exactly, you and a man was born whose name has been to the juvenile world "a household word"; sometimes a word of terror, but now, as I remember it, a word to conjure with, to wave up scenes and forms long faded and crumbled. LINDLEY MURRAY! Did you ever hear of him? And do you not remember his little book, that like another "little book" was "bitter," and never sweet at all? And don't you recollect how firmly it was bound, old Ironsides that it was, and what was on the fly-leaf, John, or James, or David Somebody, "his book," and that Lochiel-like couplet, "Steal not this book, my honest friend, For fear the gallows shall be your end," and who printed it, H. and E. Phinney, and the year, 1800 and something? Shut your eyes now, and you can see every page of that old grammar; just where the noun began, and the "verb to be," and Syntax, with its terrible code of twenty-two, exactly twenty-two rules. |