Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/44

 Till: ENGLISH FAMILY. 19

crable head, resting upon its white pillow ; the bright ness of his beautiful hair, on which fourscore and seven winters had scattered no snows ; his heavy breathing, mingled with the gentle dropping of the summer-show er upon the vine-leaves at his casement, and the meas ured tick of the clock, through that lonely night, while bending over him, I hoped against hope, that the sud den illness might not be mortal, and that the form, which but the day before had moved with so vigorous a step, would yet rise up, and lean upon its staff, and come forth to bless me. The rain ceased, a circle of faint brightness foretold the rising of the sun ; those precious lips uttered again the sound of kind words, the opening eyes told their message of saintly love, the lids fluttered and closed. There was no more breath.

Hark! a wail dispels this reverie of the heart. Another, and another piercing and prolonged, be yond even that with which an only child mourns the last parent. It must be the wail of a mother. No other sorrow hath such a voice. Yet so abruptly it burst forth, amid deep and silent meditation, that for a moment memory was bewildered, and the things which had been, mingled their confused tissue with things that are.

Among our passengers, was a dignified and accom plished lady, returning with her husband, an officer, from a residence of several years in Canada, to Eng land, their native land. They had with them three little daughters, and in the course of those conversa tions which beguile the tedium of sea-life, she had

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