Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/78

 like a consuming fire to all iniquity," Returning to her parlour, she found her brother Dr. L, waiting to make her his daily visit. He was the only brother of her deceased husband, and a few years younger than herself. The residence of his family was opposite her own; and the unrestrained intercourse, which had ever been maintained, greatly alleviated her loneliness. Dr. L was a man of great goodness of heart, and exemplary life. Gentleness of manner, moderation in sentiment, and sincere piety were his characteristicks. As he approached the close of a long life, (for more than fourscore year were allotted him,) benevolence became more and more his distinguishing feature; as the stream expands more widely, as it prepares to enter the bosom of that sea, where its course terminates. Invariable temperance, and a mind a stranger to those starts of passion which disorder the wheels of existence, gave him an age of unbroken activity and health; cheered by the sight of his children's children, springing up like olive plants around his path. He lived to see the eyes of this beloved sister closed in death, when she had nearly attained fourscore years and ten. The fraternal attachment, which had been nourished for more than half a century by the sympathies of daily intercourse, did not fully reveal its strength, till its ties were sundered. "Bowing down, he walked heavily, as one who mourneth for his mother,"—and in two years slumbered near her, beneath the clods of the valley.

At the period of this sketch, he was in his grand ,