One sweet Lord's Day she knelt down at the rail, In her loved Church, and had forgot all grief, Receiving there the hallowed Bread and Wine, And the one shadowed forth had strengthened her, So that she fed on food come down from Heaven. The others moved. But she was in her place. The Pastor came, and found that she was dead. Oh how the tears of Christians fell that day! Oh how they thanked God for her good release! And so she went to her eternal rest.
But men, unreasoning, said they saw her form, Oft in the night, along the river shore-- Oft at the Ford, which now is crossed no more. And men will say, in firmness of belief, That when the Inn was closed, and no man dwelt In its forsaken walls, a light was seen In Ellen's room. And then they also say, That pure while flowers which never grew before, Now come with Spring, where her bright spirit walks. My children say, that if you hear the owl Along her pathway, you may hasten on Sure that her spirit will not meet you there. But should you hear a bird of plaintive song, Break the night's stillness, then go far around By field and wood--for you may see her form Along the shore she gladdened with her life-- A shore of many sorrows at the last.
_MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BIOGRAPHY;--OR, LITERATURE FOR A FAIR WIDOW._
I had just concluded my first cause at the bar. My duty had been the defence of a man, whom the jury, without leaving the box, condemned to be hung. My friends said that I spoke very eloquently. I consoled myself for my want of success, by remembering that my client had put into my hands, sorry evidence of his innocence, in place of having allowed me to arrange the circumstances of his murderous deed, so that the testimony against him might have at least, some degree of inconsistency and doubt. But the rash creature formed his plan for killing a man out of his own head. A poor, stupid, blundering head it was.
I have always regarded that trial with a cool, philosophical mind. I think that any gentleman, who indulges himself in that rather exceptionable occupation of shedding the blood of his fellow-man, without first consulting a lawyer, deserves to be executed. And, verily, this fellow got his deserts.
Well, as I sat in my office, perfectly calm and composed, some hours after the case was decided, I received a pretty note from a widow lady. I had often met her at our pleasant little evening parties. She was on a visit to one of her friends in our green village; was very pretty, was said to be quite agreeable, and it was obvious that she was much admired by the gentlemen. As to her age--to say the least on that subject, which I consider, in such a case, to be the only gentlemanly mode of procedure--she was some years older than she wished to be accounted.