Page:A New England Tale.djvu/59

48 removed; she wished not to have the peace of her mind interrupted by any unnecessary agitation. Whenever she felt herself a little better, she would pass a part of the day in riding. Never did any one, in the full flush of health, enjoy more than she, from communion with her Heavenly Father, through the visible creation. She read with understanding the revelations of his goodness, in the varied expressions of nature's beautiful face.

"Do you know," said she to her husband, "that I prefer the narrow vales of the Housatonick, to the broader lands of the Connecticut? It certainly matters little where our dust is laid, if it be consecrated by Him who is the 'resurrection and the life;' but I derive a pleasure which I could not have conceived of, from the expectation of having my body repose in this still valley, under the shadow of that beautiful hill."

"I, too, prefer this scenery," said Mr. Lloyd, seeking to turn the conversation, for he could not yet but contemplate with dread, what his courageous wife spoke of with a tone of cheerfulness. "I prefer it, because it has a more domestic aspect. There is, too, a more perfect and intimate union of the sublime and beautiful. These mountains that surround us, and are so near to us on every side, seem to me like natural barriers, by which the Father has secured for His children the gardens He has planted for them by the river's side."

"Yes," said Rebecca, "and methinks they enclose a sanctuary, a temple, from which the brightness of His presence is never withdrawn. Look,"