Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/36



HE chamber was large and luxurious; the first rays of morning stole through window curtains of rose-colored silk, and diffused an auroral hue over draperies of finely-wrought lace, that canopied the bed, where a youthful mother reposed in that pleasant state of dreamy consciousness when the mind hovers delightfully between waking and slumber. The flushed cheek of a sleeping boy was pressed to her own; a fair-featured girl nestled closely on the other side; in the richly decorated cradle, standing near the couch, slumbered a babe, a very pearl in its velvet casket. So, at least, the young Cornelia thought, for she often styled these three precious, human gems, worn with happy pride upon her maternal bosom, her diamond, her ruby, her pearl.

Few steps had she yet taken upon the journey of life, so few that the waves of time had not rolled far back into the past, the days when she gave credence to the existence of those diminutive "good people" called fairies, and now, in her