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lA r C. R. IIANLEITER,
P © £ T R ¥.
NATURE.
FROM THE GERMAN.
Ilium”J by reddening skies, stand glittering
On tender blade the dew ;
AnJ undulates the landscape of the spring
Upon the clear stream’s blue.
Fair is the rocky rill, the blossom’d tree,
The grove with gold that gleams :
Fair is the star of eve, which close we see
To yonder purple realms.
Fair is the meadow’s green, the dale’s thick bush,
The hill’s bright robe es flowers,
The alder-stream, the pond’s surrounding rush,
And lilhes’ snowy showers.
Oh I how the host of beings arc made one
By Love’s enduring band !
The glow-worm, and the fiery flood of sun,
Spring from one Father’s hand.
Thou beckontst. Almighty, if the tree
Lose hut a hud that’s blown ;
Thou beckonest, if in immensity
One sun is sunk tad gone!
gILEE© Ti ® TAL I© J
POOR BRIDGET ;
Ur The Narrative of the Emigrant Family.
BY 11. HASTINGS WELD.
CHAPTER I.
MAY DAY IN NEW-YOP.K.
When Alexander conqueted the world,
he wept fur another world to conquer. Our j
highly worthy and notable Dutch predeces
sors believed more like reasonable beings
and less like spoiled children, titan that j
spoiled child of fortune, Alexander of Mace >
don, whom men call Great. \\ hen the
good vrows of New Amsterdam had scrub
lied the whole interior of a house, when !
they had even deluged the tiles of the roof
ami mopped the little Dutch bricks in the
chimney; when they had even taken up the
floor, and taken off the casings <>f the doors
to scour the wood on the other side, they
did not weep for more scouring to do, but
set about finding it—an easi r task, by the
way, than for Alexander to enter as con
querer into another wotld. He went to
one—it is true —but Alexander was ferried
over Styx by Clinton, with as little ceiomo
ny as the meanest of his soldiers. “J here
is not room in his boat for earthly honors
—no, not even a title !
Woman’s work, they say, in these degen
erate days. is never done—andjwe believe it
—hut it is because women will not emulate
the good example of the daughters of New
Amsterdam. It is not because woman’s ■
work cannot be done ‘hat it is not done— i
Itemise woman will not do it. The oldest j
descendant of the Dutch dynasty; whose !
memory (it must be a woman) wi 1 carry her 1
hack into the halcyon days of soap and sand :
in Manhattan, will tell you that woman’s
wurk in those good old limes was finished j
just once in every year, upon the thitteeth !
day of April. From the first of May, when j
site entered her residence, by the terms of i
tlie leases then and now used, to the|last of j
the next April, was required to “ clean up” j
and make a house habitable. Some people i
in these degenerate times, might fancy that,
so notch being aeccompli.xhed, the next,
tiling in order was to sit down nttd inhabit
the domicil thus redeemed. So might a
modern statesman think that, a kingdom be
ing once conquered, the next duty was to i
Biivern and enjoy it. Alexander, however, |
had no such effeminate ideas. Nor had the
Dutch housewives.
Alexander could only weep—and move
cnuitiets by a monarch’s tears. Women j
can move themselves, and never shed a tear, j
while they turn their husbands into pack
hoi ses, and turn the city upside down. —
Hence came the custom of shifting resid* ti
res, punctually upon the first day of May,
annually. The women “cleaned out” eve
ry corner, cranny and nook of their premi
ses, and wound up by clearing themselves
nut. Alas that they have not har.ded down,
with the custom of moving, the custom of
cleaning also. The family who enter anew
place of abode now, find it empty indeed,
hut far from being swept, and still faither
from being (varnished. Ihe order is now
reversed. The struggle is to defile premi
ses as much as may possibly be done in a
twelve months, and when the force of slut
tishness can t.o farther go in a house, to go
out of it, and enter another.
Rar&M the outside aspect of things on
moving day, and full of full —hut there are
depths and passages of woe tinder it. 1 lie
grinning face of the idiot mocks the mental
vacuity, or the inside sorrow beneath —the
out-door aspect of life is the low comidy ac
companiment of a deeper than scenic tra
gedy, because it is more simple and more
natural, and because it is real. Ihe land
lord who is most hard hearted can nheti
tiines do no more than deny anew lease to
his poor tenant. To throw him out in the
middle of a quarter were but to take cruel
trouble without any gain. T o let die
house over his head is to place the disa
greeable duty of expulsion with parties
who feel no compunction in executing it,
because they have no agency in causing the
grief of those, in creating whose distress
they are but mechanical und always unwil
littg agenta.
Jk WooMy § 3D)@v©ft®dl ft© IP©Mfti©s s Mows* JLsift . • M . s3® JLffftgs <&©<>•
Upon the first day of May, 1810. a poor
widow and her little daughter left the home
which hud been theirs for many years—the
mother with many a sigh—the* daughter
with no emotions but those of childish curi
osity and wonder. How should a child of
six years think ? And yet the gill was sad,
for her mother wept; and in no land be
neath the sun are found finer feelings, clo
ser family attachments, deeper love rd'kind
red, than in the green Isle of the Ocean.—
Her children carry with them, the world
over, those sentiments—they are the mis
sionaries of natural religion among mot e ar
tificial, and therefore less affectionate, com
munities. Where they huddle together in
the densest, dirtiest streets of overgrown
cities, they form oasts in the selfish deserts.
1 hey may lt poor, they may he ragged,
they may be pecuniarily wretched, but their
hearts are rich in natural affection, whole in
attachment to their firesides, happy in con
tent, while they are but spared to enjoy
gr ief togethi r.
And why should the mother weep to leave
that house ? \V as it because she was wed
in it—because the vows piighted on the
banks of the Shannon were redeemed be
neath the sinking roof of that old building ?
Was it because her child was born there?
There, too, her husband sickened and died;
and there, formally weary months since,
she hail starved. From those doors she
had seen her little all of household wealth
wrested by the landlord’s warrant; and the
simple chattels which were to her valuable
as si many monuments of the de| aited con- j
veyed away to form the subjects of heart- |
less joking and ribaldry at u street auction, j
But they could not can v the house away.— ;
The y could not tear from her, while a ten- I
ant, the corner where his last breath was
exhaled. They could not sh*it out from
her eyes the light of heaven which entered
at lire little; window to light up the last smile
on his face, as he received the last tiles of
religion, and the last offices of conjugal af
fection. They could not deprive the dull j
apartment of its associations. They could I
not make the wall tit the floor less a record |
of the gambols of her child, at which, with
its father, she had raised the shout of sur
prise, the laugh of pleasure, or the scream
of affright. The house was part of her ‘
husband's memory ; and they could not tlien
tear it from her. Hut the annual period of
removal had come round, and they had driv
en her from it. She wandered listlessly
hand in hand with her child, the child the
guide of the parent, for the latter was blind
with grief. Worn and exhausted, the two i
sat down on a marble step. Sleep stole j
over the senses of the child—the mother j
sat mxl seemed to watch the bustle about her.
But her mind was dead and her stare was
vacant —so much that until she was remind
ed by the lather rude touch of a porter that
the ptdace was about to receive an occu
pant, she had forgotten that her palace, the !
hovel she had left, to her was desolate.—
She dtevv her still sleeping child from the
stops. and moved on with the air of one
who was hunted from every covert, and j
who could hope no more for rest for the !
sole of her foot.
The new tenant of the house was charita
ble and a municipal officer—that sentence
in liberal New York does not always in
volve a paradox. He asked her name and
story, heard it in brief, gave her an order
on the almshouse commissioners, for pres
ent relief, and proceeded to oversee the
handling of furnituie, the price of almost
any one article of which would have been
to the widow a fortune. The licit, who
fear not the possibility of going to the alms
house themselves, esteem it a very tolerable
place. The poor who may lie consigned to
it on any niottow, shudder at the mention of
it. The mother placed her child upon the
door stone of a less magnificent house, and
charging her not to move till she returned, j
went first to see what manner of place the j
almshouse was, before she would Must her- j
self w ith her child within its walls. For
her own egress she did not fear, should she
not desire to stay —hut her child—they
might wrest the child ftotn her, and then in
deed she would be desolate.
Change we the scene. James Carleton
too was an emigrant, but he was hale in bo
dy, and unbroken in mind. He had been so
long in the land, that, so far as an Irish- j
man’s thoughts can be, his were weaned J
from the land of his birth. He had mat tied j
in the country of his adoption, and if for- I
tune had not showered upon him blessings j
| above the common lot, she had withheld ex- j
traoidinary misfortunes also. He once had |
a sister —that sister was dead—but as all
must tlie, his heart had become reconciled
to the deprivation, and the wife of his bo
som hud brought Him children to fill bet
place. His wotld was in his household ;
and the crowded city, with its envies, its
jealousies, its vices, and its temptations, j
(Jurleton thought was no place to rear his
j family. His little property was converted
i to cash—the few moveables which he would
{ take were packed in the wagon, which iu
; those aiite-tuilioud and steamboat times, re
moved the emigrant hundreds, aye, thou
sands of miles. To morrow he was to de
port —and it cost him no pang. The night
was to be spent with his family at the house
of a friend.
The day he spent in walking about, and
j looking with feelings of gratification at b:s
I deliveiauce from the scene of confusion
MADISON, MORGAN COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 8, 1814.
which met the eye upon all hands. Fet
ventlv did lie congratulate himself—for the
best of us are selfish—that all this shouting,
j ond crowding, and altercation, was nothing
to him. Imagination contrasted it all w ith
the quiet of the fields where he was to sit
down and watch the developement of the I
character iitnl intellect of his children. The i
future seemed Heaven to him—the present
was a hell in which he had no share.
Suddenly thete was a shout. The multi- I
tilde, vaiiousas had been the destinations of !
j its individuals, turned their heads with one j
! accord tow ard the point whete it was heard. |
lit another instant all who were not ahso- j
L lately detained elsewhere, turned their feet |
j thither also, arid Carleton was borne, with j
I the crowd, toward the spot where a heavily I
j laden car had thrown down and killed a j
j poor woman. When he reached the spot,
j the position of the body precluded a view
j of her face. A man was releasing from her
death grasp a hit of paper, and when he
had disengaged it, he placed it in Carleton’s
hand, while he still supported the body.—
Catleton lead ;
“ Admit Bridget McCann and her child
to the alms house.
“ Is she quite dead ?” he asked.
i Ids was answered in the affirmative, and, !
sensible he could do no good, and featful of ;
being detained from his journey, as a wit- j
ness, he turned aw ay hastily. lie was faint j
too—for James Cat letmi made no boast of
manhood which could enable him to look
1 unemployed and unmoved upon such a spec- !
lacle. Had he been actively engaged in as
! sisting the sufferer he could have remained, !
and would not have suffered his sensibility
to interfere with his humanity. But site !
was past the need of assistance, and there j
were enough others to attend to the respect j
due the dead. As be passed down the
street, again he thanked God that the mor
row would witness his departure from the j
city and its scenes.
A satldet man than when he commenced j
his stroll, Catleton tinned his steps home- i
ward. Homeward? Aye, “’tis home j
where Vi the heart is,” and he hastened to I
tejoitt his wife and children. Ilnw natural it j
is, w hen one sees a calami ly overtaken pet son !
in whom lie has no inteiest, for his heart to
leap toward his own, and his steps to httriv [
him to tlie assurance that they are safe.—
No mattei whether or not thete he any ;
possible chance that the same misfortune
nnty have overtaken them; the imagination
like the senses, is quickened bv pain ; and
years of fancied giiefntay puss in one slant
hour’s suspense.
Catleton thought to rub his feet-upon a J
mat at the door, in the deep shadow thrown |
by the street lamps—but a living thing
shrunk from his touch. He took tlre light
from the servant's hand, and there on tire
cold stone slept a beautiful child. Her
negligent drapery showed a fair skin
t! at ill comported with her mean, though
tidy dress, and her little round arm seemed
to shiver in the night air as he examined it.
1 An anxious expression sat upon her expres
sive countenance even in sleep. Catleton
raised her up. As he did so, her blue eyes
opened upon him with delighted affection
—but in an instant their language changed
to deep disappointment. “Why do you
wait here, child ?’’ he asked her.
“ I’m waiting for my mother.”
“ \\ hois your mother ?”
The child only stared as if she could not
comprehend why any one should ask that
question. Carleton asked again, •* \\ hat is
your mothei’s name ?” Still the child (lid
not answer. It was a question she had nevei
heard before. The servant girl, with a wo
man’s toady wit, then asked ;
“ What is your name, sis ?”
“ Bt idget McCann.”
“ And where do you live ?”
“No whete yet. We've moved.”
“ And where is your mother?”
“ I don’t know. She told me to wait for
her.”
Catleton remembered now—and shud
dered. Ho led the child in, and as she
walked down the kitchen stairs with the
servant, he wondered who should break to
the orphan the awful news—how she could
be made to understand it—and whether it
was necessary thus to afilict her. Poor
Bridget !
Had it been as easy to put Bridget in the
’ Alms House, as to put her to bed, the order
for hot admission which Catleton still held,
would have been used that evening. But
the child could not travel alone, and no one
fell the necessity of going with her, while
there was room in the house for the or
phan's head to rest. The family heard her
story, or rather the story of her moth
er's death from Carleton, and all adjourned
to the kitchen to sec the hungry child cat.
The looks of deep compassion needed no )
interpretation to Bridget—she suw they
I were all kind, and fancied that all tHe wo
men might he mothers, all the git Is sisters,
■ the men fathers, nttd the boys brothers. Shu
longed for her mother to come and see how
happy she was —she wontiered that her
mother did not come.
As Bridget, for the twentieth time said
j “ mother told me she would come lieio, if I
would wait,” the newspaper reporter wrote,
at the end of his ropnit of the inquest,
“ The body w ill be placed in the dead house
for recognition.”
CHAPTER 11.
WESTW ARD tto !
Catleton had sons, but ho daughters. Up
to this moment he had not thought of a
daughter’s love. The heavily laden wag
on stood at the door. The mother and the
} children were lifted into it. The dog i ark
j ed impatiently, and Carleton was just ready
jto seat himself beside his family. Bridget's
J little face peeped from an upper window—
j in an instant was down beside the etni
! giant. As he prepared to mount, she stele
| up unperceived, and touched his elbow.—
i “ Will yen take me to my mother 1”
! Carleton looked at the child—at his wife
1 —at the still vacant nook iu tl e wagon. It
was an impulst—but it was mutual on the
1 pnitof Ini. band and wife, God directs out
! impulses for good. The father placed
Bi iuget in the wagon—the mother eked
out her scanty covering with her own cloak.
The family took the child ns a blessing—for
it is not the rich who do the acts of iinesl
benevolence. J.ong before the wagon
wheels had censed jolting upon the pave
ment, Bridget was asleep. Like a bird, ex- j
iled liom the patent nest, she clung to the
fit st protector, and while she slept, dreamed
of her mother.
Night fill upon the traveler?, and being
yet within the liluikls of the older settle
ments, they sought the shelter of a village
inn. Night fell on the city. The day de
signated for recognition of the mother's
coisv had passed, and no one cla med it.— |
Bridget fell asleep, and as her mother by .
adoption took leave of her with a kiss, the j
mercenary hireling drove the last contract ;
nail in her own mot!el’s ititle coffin. Day .
broke upon Bridget, and as she was lifted
into the emigrant wagon, the body of her
mother was pushed upon tlie hearse. And j
when Bridget again sought her pillow for |
the night, and to dream of the mother, of
whom her occupation itt the dav time scarce l
left her time to think, a tier of coffins had
been piled upon the remains of her parent
in Potters’ Field. Quick lime was
strewn between each, and over the highest
a scanty foot of earth. Little coffins, with
children like! Bridget, and younger, filled
the chinks of the aceldema, and the wealth
of Indies could not, in a few days, have des- I
ignuted the coffin of Bridget's mother from
among the rest.
Happy child ! She knew nothing of all
tins, nor could she have known. As day j
and day rose and wore over her, the mem- j
ory of her parent grew less and less dis
tinct, As night after night fell, the mother I
still visited the niphan child in dreams. At i
first the anxious and care-worn visage of j
the parent presented itself at Bridget's led- !
side, and offered the self-denying crust. —
Children’s dreams ate beyond their years.
The ir visions are as old as those of adults; j
but the infant vocabulary furnishesno words
with which the child may communicate to
its seniors the story of the night. Angels
hover over and hold communion with chil
dren in the still watches; and when they
would tell us of it we laugh at them !
Nightly to the bedside of her ch Id came
the mother’s spirit. At fiist Btidget’s vivid
recollection of distress invested the phan
tom with the look of kind self denial. But
Bridget knew waul no mote, and the menr
ol v of want soon faded from her dreams.—
Happy herself, bet mother's face beamed
with happiness, as the visions of the child
took color from her daily experience ; and
it slioit time sufficed to make her dreams a
repetition of tho day’s delight. By day
and night the child, as she was sensible of
happiness, in some indefinable way attiihu
ted i'. to her mother. That mother became
a mental abstraction, whose visible repre
sentatives were the kind family with whom
she journeyed.
‘I he path of the emigrant is not now over
flowers. Much less was it so at the time
of which we write. Not even the facilities
of canals, with their now accounted snail
like progress, helped the emigrant. Ohio
was the ultima thu/e, and the road to the
then “ far west” hud to be won in many
stages wiili tlie axe. As is now the case at
the extreme borders of emigration, the
traveler carried his own hosteliie with him.
The camp fire supplied the means of pre
paring food; the rifle during the day pro
vided the substantials of the evening repast,
the cover of the wagon protected the trav
eler from the dews of heaven, while the
carefully nursed fire kept the beasts of the
forest aloof. Points which we now reach
in hours, then required days to attain, and a
day* journey now, then occupied weeks.
The pace of the emigrant was little be
yond a walk, as, indeed, the able bodied of
the emigrant parties did walk, leaving to
the children and women the carefully hus
banded assistance of the best of burthen.—
But the men who carved out their fortunes
under such laborious conditions, while they
won competence, acquited habits of bodily
hardihood, and mental strength, which fit
ted them to the fathers of the West, and
founders of nations. They have given to
their child ten a rich inheritance—not mere
ly a pecuniary independence, but a person
al character, which fits them to be, as they
are rapidly becoming, the arbiters of this
great nation. The young lion of the West
even now holds in awe the enervated At
lantic. The West most he our master——
and it will he at once mighty in power, and
magnanimous in its exercise. Those who
contino themselves to the seaboard know as
little of the republic, os he knows of a man
who limits himself to an observation of the
toilet, without a thought upon the mind,
j The soul of tlie Union, it will shortly be
i found, is seated I eyond the Alleghanies.
The weary toad occupied many weeks
before the journey was accomplished. Dai
ly little 111 idget entwined herself more
and more closely about the Hearts of her
benefactors, until the relation in which they
stood to each other was forgotten. Budg
et was no longer the stranger whom they
had taken in charity, but hud become a
dearly beloved member of the little circle.
The mother's wardrobe aided her scanty
equipment in some measure; und where
the intonvcniencies of the journey prevent
ed the adaptation of garments too uselessly
large, the tiunk whithcontuii edjdie apparel
of the boys was unhesitatingly drawn upon.
Bridget looked as lovely in it jacket as the
best of them, and the loss of one of her
shoes ft orn the wagon as she slept, was
promptly remedied with a pair of little
John’s half boots. It is a picnic and hap
py life with all its inconveniences, that of
the emigrant : and the absence of the re
stmints of conventional forms, the ready
glee with which odd expedients are adopt
ed.and the echo of the unrestrained laugh
in the forest make the traveler cease to re
giet, if lie does not. cease to remember,
the conveniences of Ins late residence in the
crowded town.
So passed the journey ; and the only re
giet which Bridget occasioned to her wor
thy guardian, was when the passing stran
ger whom he encountered, complimented
him on the unstudied beauty and rosy health
of his daughter. He would sigh that the
presumption was incorrect, but he never
took the trouble to contradict it. lie was
willing, if possible, to deceive himself, and
lie earnestly desired that Bridget might
cense to remember any other father than
himself, any other mother than his wife.—
‘I lie boys had already adopted her as a sis
ter, and the delusion grew daily more strong,
as they lead learned to discover from fre
quent allusion to the fact by others, that
“ Btidgi i looked the image of her father.”
CHAPTER HI.
A NEW UOilE —A FUNERAL —A WEDDING—-AND
A RIRTII.
We must take tlie convenient liberty of
story tellers, to shake Old Time’s glass, and
hurry tlie sand through faster than its wont;
or, to take the still ruder libeity of forget
ting him altogether for a few years. The
Carleton family had been some ten yeats
“settled.” W here they pitched their tent,
the log house had succeeded the impromptu
cabin. The clearing which was at fiist a
narrow enclosure, had spread to a w ide farm.
The log house had given way to a small
frame, with the luxury of glass windows
and a hiick chimney. Neighbors had sat
down near them, and the “ smokes” of sev
eral habitations could be discerned from
the hardy settler’s door.
‘1 ime and space would fail us to describe
till the stages of life in the West, ftom the
selection of a site for the house, down to
the “ harvest home” of the cultivated crops.
Nor would it be less than presumption in
us to attempt a theme in its details, which
has been so much better handled by those
who, if not “ to the manor hotn,” have “ to
the manor” emigrated. The toil necessary
to reduce the desert of spontaneous but use
less luxuriance To the plenty bearing acres
of a well stocked and tilled farm, told as
sensibly and as happily upon tlie fanners as
upon the soil. The father appeared to hav e
taken anew lease of life. His step was
more manly, and his frame more vigorous
than when, ten years before, we accompa
nied him from the city. The two boys bed
grown up into fine stalvvait young men — )
and Bridget—what shall we say of her?
If James Carleton was proud of his adapt
ed daughter while she was yet a child, what
shall we say of the gratification of his hon
est heart, as he looked upon the maiden of
sixteen 1 She had become, under bis goid
itia care, and under tlie practical teachings
of the West, n woman, while yet a child.
Fat temtived from the at Hit rry laws of so
ciety, w liich do but make sins oftiifles barm
less in themselves, by prohibition ; Bridget’s
innate modesty, native purity, and strong
good sense, formed her manual of morals
and nfanners, She instinctively avoided
what her heart told her was wrong; she in
stinctively followed wlint that heart told her
was light. Her delicacy was guided by
rite maxim “ avoid every appearance of
evil,” and her innocence prevented her in
vesting any thing good with an evil appear
ance. Slit* hail no world-hackneyed asso
cintior.s to lead her to put an extiinsic color
of impropriety on what is intrinsically pro
per and right.
Her “politeness” was sincere, and had its
b ginning and end in the golden rule, to deal
by others as she would he dealt by. Still
Bt idget was mortal, and of course far (tom
perfect; but as fur as native grace and love
liness can throw a veil aver imperfections,
were her faults naturally, and without ef
fort, thus concealed. While Catleton watch
ed her, his thoughts involuntarily strayed
buck to the homo of bis childhood, beyond
the far wide ocean—for what his sister was
to him in his youth, was Bridget becoming
to him in bis tiper years. She was even
dearer—and he sometimes thought that he
could see in her countenance positive lines
of resemblance to the playmate of his child
hood. But as he had tto ft tend, who hav
VOLUME II.""NUMBER 50.
ing seen both, could unite with him in draw-’
iti” the paralic-1. he had no one but himself
to convince of the resemblance; and a
man’s own heart is not hard of belief in that
to which he would persuade it. When
theiefore he called ••Bridget!” and her
cheerful voice answered, it was happiness
to him to recognise in the tones of her who
answeied to his departed sister’s name* a
resemblance to her voice.
It was happiness, too, to he carried, by
her elastic step hack to the time Ovhen his
sister bounded to meet him, and to resd ift
I er mild blue eyes the same confiding affect
tion which united the brother and sister of
1 years gone by. This sister was in Heaven
—he tejoiced for her there—be rejoiced in
Iter upon earth—for “ Poor Bridget,” ns he
once called his protege, was to him in his
manhood, all that his own sister had been
in his infancy.
And Mrs, Oath.ton loved Biidget, too,’
with an affection ns deep and sincere, if not
as poetical, as her husband’s. But the ma
tron’s attachim nts to Bridget bad yet ano! Ik t
motive—gratitude. Happiness unalloyed
is no man’s continued earthly lot. The emt
igiant who moves to the freedom and plenty
of the “ new country,’’ from the restrictions
and labor of the old, is taught, in God’s un
erring Providence, though he may seem to
have conquered anew world for himself,
on overruling Power is still present,’ and
that in his hands are the issues of life.
Woman, in the sphere for which she was
bom, has ni'tre endurance than man.- But
man is more elastic, his mind is more active,
and his frame better adapted to support
change. Hence, while we find that remov
al to the West is often the apparent pur
chase of longevity to the man, to the matron
it brings weakness, and often premature
cleat I). Could Oar let on have seen the wifelhal
he married, arid the wife that presided over
his plain table in Ohio, placed side by side,
the strong contrast between the blooming
health of the one, and t lie waning pallor of
the other, would have shocked him at once,
and inefliiceably.
But the change had been gradual, and
therefore imperceptible. As day fades in
to night through the long summer twilight,
we cannot murk any point of time at which
durknoss increases. One shadow prepares
the way for the next, and thus, when night
has indeed fallen, we are as much taken by
surprise as if the light were shut from us at
midday. Glorious as the setting of a sum
mer sun were the patting daysot Mrs. Carle
tu'i. .Mild as the reflection of the depart
ing light were the evidences of her virtue,
and the exercises of her kindness. Calmly
as the sun sinks to r est did she, step by step,
yield her bold upon life—and sudden as
night falls to a contemplative mind did tiro
conviction of her sickness unto death fall
upon Carleton. As he watched the beauty
of the evening clouds, he had watched the
closing months of his wife’s existence, and
as in one case he forgot that the beauty of
the heavens was the hailunger of night, so
did he, in the other, overlook the warning of
death’s approach in the almost supernatural
mental and mature personal loveliness of
tlie partner of Iris bosom.
And now did lire emigrant family reap
the reward of - their kindness to the orphan.
Biidget had been the first to perceive, and
the lust to mention tlie declining health of
Mrs. Gutleton. But from the moment that
her keen observation revealed the truth to
Iter, she had set about relieving the house
wife of her can's. Heretofore sire had been
the active performer of Mrs. C.’s wishes i
the details of the household economy.
•She had been an obedient daughter, and
leaving to her adopted parent the direction,
had contented herself w ith the execution.-
Now anew and wider field of duty present
ed itself, and without any obtrusive offi
ciousness which should lead the invalid to
suspect that wlnit she imagined the secret of
her ill health, was discovered, Bridget grad
ually and gently assumed more and more of
the care of the household, until the Invalid
was entirely relieved from solicitude. She
fancied, for some time, that she had still the
weight of her matronly duties on her hands
hut they seemed to her lighter than ever
before. Otic evening, as they sat beside
each other, awaiting the return of the fath
er and sons from the farm, l heW light
broke upon the invalid. She had detected
nti anxious look in Bridget’s kind and intel
ligent countenance —she understood in a
moment the whole of her self-denying con
duct, wise and tender beyond her years—
and tin* matron fell on the orphan’s neck
and wept,
Ftoin that moment the truth broke upon
the forest household. The illness of one of
its heads, which hope had repelled hitherto,
us u forbidden topic, and which affection had
striven to regard as momentary and there
fore an unnecessary cause for despairing
converse, was now frequently and sadly
spoken of. All fell, ami none more confi
dently than Mrs. Cnilelon, that **thc time
jof her departure was at hand.” Bridget
was her constant attendant, her nurse, her
} Hiigil; and if affect ion could hare averted
j decease, I er life would have been made im
1 mortal. But death came—not ns aiude,
jor an unexpected visitant. He seemed to
enter the little chamber as nnislcssly and
• kindly as any other attendant upon the s:rk
! —ami Mrs. Cmleton drunk hit cup os meek
i ly as she had partaken those proffered by
j her tender friends.; “ She sank to re*t with
out u struggle.