Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/91

Rh every Christian spirit will be ready to breathe a prayer for, and give gentle counsel to, a daughter so bereaved.

Yet among the sweet examples which rise to our observation or memory, if we are thoughtful seekers for excellence, we shall find many an instance, among high and low, of a daughter taking her mother's place—showing her tender love for the departed, not so much by tears and grief as by trying to fulfil every duty, and seeking to compensate the home for the loss of the wife and mother, who, if worthy of those names, was the central light of the dwelling.

In many a humble home, the family have had to cling to some elder sister, who seemed to have put off her childhood at her mother's grave; and, while the tears were still wet upon her cheeks, has begun to set the house in order, to tend the children, to pay extra attention to the head of the family, and in a thousand ways to prevent the father from being utterly crushed by his trouble. God's blessing is on all such efforts of affection! The effort is indeed twice blessed—to the youthful mind that makes it, and to the home it is made for. Many a thoughtless girl has been developed into a noble woman by such a discipline of sorrow.

But the temptations of youth are much increased in the case of an only daughter whose father is in that position in life which belongs to a superior station. A professional man, whether doctor or