Page:Letters of Life.djvu/108

96 Yet this excursion, and the knowledge of her sterling virtues thus given to the relatives of her former mistress, whom she had faithfully served almost twenty years, was to win her a future permanent and most desirable home.

At crossing the Connecticut, on our return, I recollect the honest creature said earnestly how much she should like to live there; not knowing that her lot had even then been thus cast by a Hand that never errs. As she spoke, a silent prayer of gratitude for the blessed kindness that had cheered me in this pleasant spot, was rising from my full heart; and a petition unconsciously mingled, that, if it were the Divine will, I might at some future time be permitted to revisit it. No prescience, as the voiceless orison breathed over these quiet waters, then suggested that there would ever be aught of adaptation to the reminiscence of the patriarch, "With my staff passed I over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands."