66 Certainly," said the mother, "but Laura is always meeting with accidents. Now Angela and Rosamond are more careful; they always were. How rough your hair is, child! it looks as though it hadn't been combed for a month. Such unmanagable hair, for all the world just like yourself! Go and ask Jane to brush it for you. Do you see, Anna, how sunburnt she is? brown as a gipsey! she is out of doors half the time, and she disdains to wear a hat." Laua soon re-appeared from the nursery with her tattered frock exchanged for another, and her rebellious locks completely subjected to precision and order. She sat down and tried to be still as her mother desired, but ere many minutes elapsed, she was flitting about the room for something to do. While turning over the books upon a side-table she overthrew a vase of flowers. The water was spilled upon the costly books and trickled down upon the carpet. “O, what a child!" cried Mrs. Harley, and she caught up the books, and loudly called upon Jane to bring a cloth and wipe up the water. Laura stood in silence till the mischief was remedied, then she turned and impulsively flung her arms about her mother's neck. The caress was rather too sudden and ardent to be exactly agreeable, and Mrs. Harley was not in the mood to appreciate it. "There, that will do," she cried, struggling for release, "if you should hug me to death, it wouldn't mend the matter." Laura suddenly dropped her arms by her side and walked slowly out of the room, and her aunt only observed the tear filled eyes and quivering lips. An hour passed very happily. The sisters chatted of auld lang syne. Mr. Harley, having finished the news, made himself very agreeable; the gifted young Angela conversed with ease and lady-like tact, and Rosamond nestled close to her aunt with loving glances. That lady thought she should never tire of gazing upon the little girl's perfect face, or threading through her fingers, the long, shining curls of hair. But she remembered Laura's tearful eyes, and stole away from the family group to find her. The child was seated upon the edge of the piazza, leaning against a pillar luxuriantly wreathed with honeysuckles in bloom, The long June twilight had passed, and countless stars were burning in the far, blue depth of heaven. Laura's eyes were upturned, and drinking in the holy light of the stars, and her hands were clasped as if at prayer. 'Laura, what are you doing, out here alone?" asked Mrs. Dutton. "I'm talking to the stars!" 66 Talking to the stars?" "Yes; they are up in heaven, you know, where the angels are. O, they are so beautiful, and God made them! I wish I had wings, and I'd fly up there!" "Dear child, what do you say to the stars, and what do they say to you ?" "I say, 'dear, beautiful stars!' and they keep saying, Little Laura, we love you, we love you!" Mrs. Dutton bent low and kissed the child. Laura had not genius or beauty, but a gift more exquisite and precious than either, a sensitive and tender heart, full to the brim, of spiritual aspirations and longings for love. A month following the opening of this sketch, Mrs. Harley and Mrs. Dutton were one day talking of the relative merits of the children. "I have studied their characters until I know them well,' "Rosamond is the loveliest creature I ever beheld, and more than that, she has a lovely disposition. But beauty and genius must stand aside for love. Little Laura is the flower of the family!" "Laura!" "Yes; your little, wayward, restless, unlucky, gipsey-like child!" "Laura is a dear child," said the mother; "though so trying at times, she has a good heart, but she is superior in no respect. Then I am obliged to check her continually." "You do check and reprove her continually, dear sister, and it pains me to see it. She is very active, full to overflowing with animal spirits, but beneath all this childishness is a wealth of noble feelings. You do not understand your child, -she has never revealed to you her inner nature." Mrs. Harley was both wounded and astonished. She looked down in silence, and uneasily turned a ring around and around her finger. She thought over her sister's words, and her conscience acknowledged them as true. She had ever tried to correct the faults of her youngest child without seeking to cultivate the heavenly germs in that soul intrusted to her care. Without knowing it, without meaning it, she had been a partial mother. After some minutes, Mrs. Harley looked up, saying in a low, humble tone of voice, "Anna, you say you have studied the characters of my children, that you know them well; tell me exactly how Laura appears to you. "She is a little epitome of love; she has the heart of an angel." Was it so? Mrs. Harley bowed her head upon her hands. Had God given her such a child, and was she so blind that she did not know it? O, she would study Laura's heart, she would know her child! While she mused, the voice of Rosamond, out of doors, started her, with . a loud, frightened call. "Mother, mother! come to Laura quickly!" "Laura is hurt!" cried Mrs. Harley; "she is always running into danger." Both ladies hastened to the door. Rosamond was near the piazza steps, bending over the prostrate form of little Laura. She was trying to raise her from the ground. "O, mother, she has fainted! darling Laura!" cried the frightened sister. "How did she fall?" asked Mrs. Harley. 66 I don't know exactly; she was running across the piazza, and the first thing I knew, she had fallen backwards on to the ground.” They bore the insensible child into the house and applied restoratives. When she opened her eyes and drew in her breath, it was with a scream of agony; her features were distorted and her form writhed in torture. "She is dreadfully hurt!" cried the mother, in anguish ; "O, my dear, little lamb!" The physician came, but could give no relief, for upon examination, the spine was found to be seriously injured. Alas, poor Laura! her singing, dancing days were over. No more would her pulses leap and thrill with the joy of health. No more would she run into danger. No more would her restless, overflowing spirits try her mother. Bitter days followed. Laura's sufferings were intense, and her affectionate friends watched over her with rent hearts and weeping eyes. After a time the dreadful paroxysm of pain subsided and she was able to be bolstered up by pillows. She grew still better, so that she could sit in a nice wheelchair which her fond father purchased for her use. But here the improvement ceased, and there was no prospect that she could ever be better. Laura must be a cripple and a sufferer all her life. Now the beauty of Laura's inner nature developed itself. She was all cheerfulness, sweetness, patience. So grateful for every attention, so uncomplaining, so easily pleased with trifles! If Mrs. Harley did not understand her child in health, there was no want of appreciation now. She loved her with a love that was almost idolatry, and watched every labored breath and felt every pang as only a mother can. Laura's mind was full of heavenly thoughts, and sometimes she would utter words of unconscious wisdom, which her friends would treasure as pearls of great price. It was touching to look upon her wasted form and then to her spiritual face with its cheerful smile and eyes beaming with such a patient, loving light. It was a pleasure to be in her presence, for an influence was continually outgoing from all that she said or did, the power of which could not be expressed in words. It seemed as though she communed with beings from a higher sphere, and that they breathed their spirit upon her. The discipline of sickness rapidly matured the mind of Laura, and at twelve years she was a child only in innocence and gentleness. When the mission of her sufferings had wrought out their work in the hearts that loved her, she faded away. She knew that she was dying, and cheerfully, gladly welcomed the kind messenger. "Dear mother," she said one day, 66 shall you miss me so very much when I am gone?" "Shall I miss you, my child? do you ask if I shall miss you ?" cried the mother, bursting into tears. Angela and Rose will comfort you. Do not mourn for me; I shall be an angel!" "O, my dearest one! do you suffer so much! is your life so sad that you wish to die ?" "I love you and father and sisters very, very much, and you are all kinder than I can tell;-heaven is so beautiful! I am weary of this long pain; it would be sweet to be at rest. I want to be angel!" Her prayer was soon granted. Young Laura died, and with many tears they laid the flower of the family in the dust. But when the first, great gush of grief had subsided, and they thought of what she had been and what she then was, and com pared the suffering, imprisoned spirit with the shining seraph in heaven, they were comforted. Their heart's flower had not perished, but had been transplanted to celestial gardens. Like immortal fragrance, wafted on heavenly breezes, the memory of her patience and love came to their stricken hearts, to soothe and heal. Angela and Rosamond are now growing to womanhood with every promise of superior excellence of character. Angela is not over-ambitious nor proud of her intellectual powers, and there is not a trace of vanity in the mind of the beautiful Rosamond. It might have been otherwise; they would be less worthy, had it not been for the sickness and early death of their young sister. Their ministrations to the little invalid girl, the sympathy and tenderness called forth by her sufferings, the ardent, admiring love elicited by her wonderful patience and sweetness, all wrought a holy mission on their hearts, so that there was no room there for vanity and pride. Mrs. Harley is a wiser mother than in earlier days. She has a clearer spiritual vision, she has nobler principles, and higher ideas of duly. She cannot but be proud of her daughters, and she loves them with exceeding tenderness, but the deepest affection of her soul she bestows upon her absent child, whom she beholds only in dreams-upon Laura, the flower of the family!” 46 The peculiar sympathy of God with human souls, over and above the sympathy that he has with the round globe that he has sent into space, with the little violet which he wets with dew, with the flower whose cup he fills with golden sunshine, with the cattle for whom he has spread a carpet on a thousand hills, - the sympathy of God with the being that is like unto himself in deathless aspiration of faculties, could only be expressed by a person. Nature does not express it; nature does not touch us as he did who came to consort with our weakness, to stoop to our lowliness, to pity us under the burden of our sins, and bring us home to God.Chapin's Living Words. Editor's Table. IN MEMORIAM. I have set for hours with my pen in my hand and my sheet of blank paper before me. Sometimes I sit so because I have nothing to write: this time, it is because I have so much. How can I condense into a few paragraphs the tender and beautiful memories of a friendship that was unbroken for seventeen years? Sitting here in the shadow of a great sorrow, a sorrow that drifted over me with scarcely a note of warning! How can I bear to look back to the days that are gone-the days that were brightened by sunbeams! How speak words of comfort to others, how breathe tones of hope to bereaved ones, when only to utter the name of him that is gone chokes my own throat with sobs and drenches my face with great tears. time, I heard his cheerful "good-bye, we shall meet again," and I said to myself," he cannot die—life is only begun for him. Indeed, the general tone of his letter led me to believe that his illness was caused rather by business troubles preying upon his mind, than any physical ailment. O, how differently should I have written to him, had I supposed my answer to that letter-that letter so full of kindly thoughts, and which contained, too, such a delicate act of generosity to the "poor emigrant "-would be the last of mine he should ever read. O, how can I be reconciled to the fact that the letter I wrote him afterwards,after I learned that he was going, wrote, too, amidst sobs and tears, was received too late to be even read to him! About three weeks before his death, I received a uote from Br. Cherrington, warning me that I must give up my friend-" there was no hope." Then I, for the first time, thought that he could die. Sacred to my own heart must be the memory of the weary days and nights that followed. It was agony to hear the tramp of the horse that brought the mail to my doorit was frenzy to tear the wrappers from the pa The first intimation of Br. Tompkins' illness, came to me in a letter from himself, dated February 21st-the last I ever received from him. Can it be must it be-the last the last! As the mail comes in, and I grasp my precious bundle, shall I never, nevermore see a letter directed in that bold hand, never, never more exclaim, as I tear open a closely sealed envelope, "it is from Br. Tompkins." Alas! only those who have experienced from him the kind-pers - but O, the long, sweet breath of relief ness which I have, can realize how great a loss is compressed in that single word never! His letter did not alarm me. There are so e persons with whom we cannot associate the idea of death. They seem health personified, and only to look at them is like taking a new lease of life. Br. Tompkins was one of these. As I read his letter, I remembered him as he looked on that Saturday evening when I parted from him in "38 Cornhill," no trace of weakness or disease upon his face or form, and no trace of age, save the few slender streaks of white in his dark hair. I thought of his hale constitution, his vigorous sinews, the healthy glow upon his cheeks, and the bright flashes of his eyes; I felt the warm, brotherly grasp of his kind hand as our palms met for the last when, amidst falling tears, I saw no record of departure. No news is good news, they used to say of old. I do not believe it now, as I did once, for no news has ever been to me bad news. And yet, as days passed on, I hoped and took comfort-hoped because I wanted to, and took comfort because I must. My physical ailments render me peculiarly susceptible to the weather. A rainy day will give me the blues at any time-a sunny one opens my heart to joy. There came a warm, bright, April day: the sun shone out of a sky that was blue and cloudless-a faint tint of emerald streaked the brown prairie — a ripple of spring came up from the creek—a robin sang in the peach trees-a violet blossomed in the garden. I went out of doors and looked all about me, and somehow there stole into my heart a great hope and a sweet peace, and I felt like singing psalms. I did not shudder that evening as I took up the papers. My hands were warm, my eyes bright; a flush upon my cheeks and a carol on my lips. One glance up and down the columns and - how changed was everything! Wintry winds seemed howling at the doors-heavy rain-drops dashing on the windows-my fingers grew purple and stiff — tears blinded my eyes - my cheeks grew white and my lips felt like chanting dirge notes. ask him the second time for my pay, and if 1 did not care to take it up, I was not afraid to let it lie in his hands. In this respect, as in all others, he was emphatically a man to be trusted. Had others dealt by him as he did by them, the closing days of his laborious life would have been spared many a pang. I always wrote to please him. As far as the Repository was concerned, the public was to me as nothing-he, my patron, everything. If I thought a story would suit him, I finished it; ifI thought it would not, I threw it aside. "Why don't you write so and so?" has been often asked me. "Why write so many sto It is always so-just when I hope the most, ries?" "It is Mr. Tompkins' choice that I the worst comes! write stories-I am in his employ and I write to suit him." Only one who, for eleven years has written to please her patron, can realize how lost I am, now that that patron is no more. As I turn over the manuscripts lying loosely in my portfolio, (his gift), I say to myself sadly, "Who shall I try to please now?" and then I turn the key on them and go out of doors, out of sight of pen and ink and paper, and say mournfully, "I can never, never write again; the staff that I have leaned on, is broken; the hand that led me is cold, the eye that smiled on me is closed, the voice that welcomed me is hushed." My literary life lies before me, (what there is left of it), like a great Sahara. It may have, here and there a spring with verdure on its brink, but my eyes see them not; they are blinded by the sands that blow up from it, harsh and hot. **** Br. Tompkins was the guiding star of my literary life. Very soon after my heart was crushed by widowhood, he wrote to me in his own kind, frank, generous way, bidding me ever to feel free to consult him on any matters in which myself and little ones were interested, and offering to assist me to the utmost of his ability, in any literary enterprise which I might think proper to undertake. In the autumn of that year I met him at the United States Convention at New York, and there made an engagement to write for him regularly. From that time to the day of his death he was my patron, and in that relation, I can truly say he never gave me sorrow till he died. If I was discouraged, and God only knows how many times I did get discouraged in those early days of authorship, he had ever a word of encouragement and good cheer. If I had trouble, he sympathized with me; if I was depressed, he comforted me; if I was weak, he strengthened me. He opened his large, generous heart to me as a shelter from all the trials incident to a tyro in literature. He was always kind, forbearing, lenient. If I was tardy, he would say pitifully, "you did well to get it here as you did, with so many cares and so much other work;" if I failed utterly, he would say gen-years, was one long train of comfort to me. tly, "don't try to write when you are sick; think of yourself first, the Repository afterwards." His goodnesss to me was not merely of a negative character, either. Some people never scold, and are so far to be esteemed. Others, not only never find fault, but sometimes praise you. To this class, my patron belonged. If he was particularly pleased with a story that I had written, he would tell me so, and use such words, that I was encouraged to try and do even better. In pecuniary dealings I always found him honorable. I had never to I have said Mr. Tompkins was my patron; he was more-he was my friend, my brother. If our veins had been filled with the same blood he could scarcely have been dearer. I was never afraid to open my heart to him. If I had a new joy, I hurried to tell it to him; if I had a fresh sorrow, I went to him for sympathy. Our correspondence, unbroken for eleven The same disposition that made him so genial, frank, social and lovable in his home and store, breathed itself through every sentence that he wrote. I always looked for some harmless gossip, some cheery joke, some bit of good news, and especially some beamings of his bright and beauteous faith. My whole family loved him; they all mourn him. He never saw but the oldest and the youngest of my children, but he knew the others through their pictured faces, and they knew him through his kind deeds. While within thə |