Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/454

Rh boiling. It is only beautiful in the evening, when the moon has risen, and pours her gushes of silver light among the shadows of the river and the shore.

Last evening I took a stroll through the park alone, and with an unspeakable melancholy in my soul.

“It is all past and gone, this beautiful time,” thought I; “these bonds of friendship, these beautiful sights of a New World; these beautiful, animating circumstances; all past! past and gone!” And I wept bitterly.

But when I looked up, the full moon was looking down upon me, large and splendid, and shone into my soul as she seemed to say:—

“No, it is not all past and gone! Strengthen thy heart with the light which increases for ever! That which the human being has thus found, thus acquired, is his for ever, and cannot die. It is an imperishable seed, which will renovate itself in new and abundant harvests in the kingdom of light! These friends, these memories, will not cease to live in thee. To each wane succeeds a new increase and a new fulness.”

This was what the moon, my friend, seemed to say to me, and comforted I returned to the house, was silent and thankful.

In the morning I go to New York, whither my friends accompany me.

My silent friend has let fall words full of important meaning to me during these last few days. He says but little, as formerly, but in that little—so much. He wishes me clearly to understand both good and evil in this country, and to express it without reserve, but he leaves it to my own mind to find out the way and the truth.

“That will all come clear to you,” he says sometimes, “when you get home and are quiet.”

His manner and his perfect confidence enchant me.

The interest he takes in the intellectual development of woman in America is one circumstance which particularly