Page:Letters of Life.djvu/171

Rh returns to my heart through the far lapse of years, as I gather these reminiscences, and claims a heart-tribute. Full of gay life and spirit was that beautiful girl, earnest in her studies, and in the recesses for play our leader. With the vigor of a fine constitution, she exulted in all graceful exercises, and the sensation of fatigue was unknown to her. Together we scaled the ledges of rock with which our native region abounded, searching for hardy plants, when the wild honeysuckle first threw out its bright pink banner. In the evening we sometimes met, and repeated to each other the lessons for the next day, knitting at the same time, with primitive simplicity, our own stockings. When the years of school fled away, and youth ripened, her beauty assumed a more tremulous delicacy, as though health might not be firmly rooted. Watched over like a fair rosebud was she by the stately father, the doting mother, and two fond brothers, with the unwavering idolatry of affection. They would not that the winds of heaven should roughly visit their darling. She was early married, and removed to the city of New York. Early, too, was she transferred to that home where they "neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God."


 * Ah! does that gentle head

Rest with the ancient of thy noble house In the tomb's silence? Many a falling tear Answers my question from the sons of need,