Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/24

 of glee was this happy and beautiful being, that the mansion or its precincts rang, from morning till night, with the clamour of his sports, or the shouts of his laughter. Active, unwearied, and intelligent, he seemed to bear, within his breast, and upon his brow, the consciousness that he was one of the lords of creation.

On these three objects the affection and solicitude of the parents centered. Often they spake to each other of their differing lineaments of character, consulted on the methods of eradicating what was defective, or confirming what was lovely, and often contemplated the part they might hereafter act in life, with a thrilling mixture of fear and of hope. But for this anxiety it had been written, in the infinite councils, that there was no need. In one week, all these beloved beings were laid in the grave. In one week, and the arms of the mourning parents remained forever vacant. Death, whose "shadow is without order, respected in this awful instance the claims of priority. He first smote the eldest at his studies. His languishing was short. "I go to my Father in Heaven," he said, and without a struggle ceased to breathe. His disease was so infectious, that it was necessary to commit him immediately to the earth.

As the bereaved parents returned from his grave, of whom they had said, "this same shall comfort us concerning all our toil," they found the second, bowing, like a pale flowret upon its broken stem. Pain fed upon his frail frame, "as a moth fretting a garment." Anguish