But this ill, strong hands and Heaven’s help will put down. Wealth again; flowers again; patrimonial acres again; brightness again. But your little Bessie, your favorite child, is pining.
Would to God! you say in agony, that wealth could bring fullness again into that blanched cheek, or round those little thin lips once more; but it can not. Thinner and thinner they grow; plaintive and more plaintive her sweet voice.
“Dear Bessie”—and your tones tremble; you feel that she is on the edge of the grave? Can you pluck her back? Can endearments stay her? Business is heavy, away from the loved child; home, you go, to fondle while yet time is left—but _this_ time you are too late. She is gone. She can not hear you; she can not thank you for the violets you put within her stiff white hand.
And then—the grassy mound—the cold shadow of head-stone!
The wind, growing with the night, is rattling at the window panes, and whistles dismally. I wipe a tear, and in the interval of my reverie, thank God, that I am no such mourner.
But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to the household. All is bright again:
The violet bed’s not sweeter Than the delicious breath marriage sends forth.
_Her_ lip is rich and full; her cheek delicate as a flower. Her frailty doubles your love.
And the little one she clasps—frail too—too frail: the boy you had set your hopes and heart on. You have watched him growing, ever prettier, ever winning more and more upon your soul. The love you bore to him when he first lisped names—your name and hers—has doubled in strength now that he asks innocently to be taught of this, of that, and promises you by that quick curiosity that flashes in his eye, a mind full of intelligence.
And some hair-breadth escape by sea, or flood, that he perhaps may have had—which unstrung your soul to such tears as you pray God may be spared you again—has endeared the little fellow to your heart a thousandfold.
And, now with his pale sister in the grave, all _that_ love has come away from the mound, where worms feast, and centers on the boy.
How you watch the storms lest they harm him! How often you steal to his bed late at night and lay your hand lightly upon the brow, where the curls cluster thick, rising and falling with the throbbing temples, and watch, for minutes together, the little lips half-parted, and listen—your ear close to them—if the breathing be regular and sweet!