Page:The Partisan, v1.djvu/166

 -· if `T `· ·”» . . . ‘ ras nwnsn:. 168 •* It is painful, very painful, to think so; yet so.it must be, if you have said it. God prosper you inyour cause, Robert, and-his eye be upon you l" He could only reply by earnestl pressing his lips upon her cold forehead, as with paingzl eyes hewatched her progress to her chamber, supported by the arms of his lovely cousin. V .'*lmay not listennow, How should we bear The song of birds, when, in the stormy sky, _ Rolls the rude thunder l" ‘ - — Tm: ladies had retired, but it was not easy for ‘ Singleton and his uncle to resume the topic which had previously engaged,-them. There was a visible damp upon their spirits~·—·the elastic nephew, the hesi- tating colonel, the rough, honest, and direct Humphries, all felt the passionate. force of Em;15y's exhortation, though its argument necessarily f ' ed upon them. There had been quite too much that was awing in her speech and ma.nner—as if death were speaking through the lips of life. Their thoughts had been elevated by her language to a theme inhuitely beyond the hourly and the earthly. The- high-sealed emphasis with which she had insisted upon the integrity of human life, as essential to the due preparation for the future immortality, had touched the sensibility of those whose vocation was at hostility with the doctrine which she taught; and though, from the very nature of things, they could not obey her exhortations, they yet could not fail to meditate upon, and to feel them. Thus impressed, silent and unobservindg, it was a relief to all, when Major Singleton reminde Humphries of the promise which he had presumed to make him, touching the old Madeira in his nncle’s garret. Hs briedy told the latter of the circumstance alluded to,