“Fanny Wilbank still lives; the beauty of her noble countenance has faded beneath the touch of time, and many a thread of silver is mingled with her dark locks, yet is she the centre of a circle of loving and beloved friends, still the same, patient, tender, self-forgetting being, that she was in the day of her early adversity.”
“So she was at last rewarded, cousin Grace, notwithstanding your assertion to the contrary.”
“And do you deem her after fortunes a fitting recompense for the trials of her youth, Frank? The bloom of youth, the freshness of feeling, the glow of hope, the buoyancy of health,—all things that give a charm to life, faded one by one from her view, even as the stars vanish in the slowly-gathering tempest cloud,—patience, long suffering, meekness, and resignation had taken the place of bright anticipation in her bereaved heart,—time had laid his cold touch upon her fair brow, aye, and upon her warm heart too, and then, at the last she was _rewarded_—how?—why forsooth, by wedding the object of her early love, after her life had ‘fallen into the sear and yellow leaf,’—and thus obtaining the enviable privilege of educating the children of her predecessor.”
“Do you not remember, Frank, the sick lady on whose bed you loved to clamber, when you were a merry little urchin, who used to cover your balls so neatly, and paint so many pretty devices for your kites?”
“To be sure I do;—I remember too how bitterly I cried when they told me she was dead, and I saw them bring in the small coffin for her shrunken form. You don’t mean to say that was Mary Wilbank?”
“It was, cousin Frank, and in the story of Fanny Wilbank, I have been relating to you the early life of one whom you have ever loved with filial tenderness—I mean your excellent step-mother.”
“She is the only mother I have ever known, cousin Grace, and you can tell me nothing good of her which I cannot readily believe; so if you take her for an example, I have no more to say against the existence of disinterestedness in this selfish world. It is only a pity there are so few like her.”
Unclouded the sun from his glittering throne Looked radiantly down where the tempest had gone! For in darkness it came with the tokens of wrath, But fled at the dawn on its ice-covered path. And straight in the sunbeams the forest displayed A host in the armor of battle arrayed; There the “helmet of brass,” and the shield glistened clear, And the bright flashing steel of the sword and the spear. The garden, where Flora in summer is green, At the glance of the sun was all dazzling with sheen; And never a princess outvied, with her gems, The jewels that hung there on numberless stems! The lawn trees which stand in the glory alone, Each sparkled with diamonds, like kings, on a throne, And ne’er when o’erspread with their green foliage shade, Were they in such beauty or splendor arrayed!