The Fortunes of the Colville Family; or, A Cloud with its Silver Lining

CONTENTS


“A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!”
Words, of course, in themselves good and well-chosen, and embodying a wish which all who love their neighbour should feel and communicate;—God in his mercy grant there may be very many who can respond to such a salutation hopefully; for in this Valley of the Shadow of Death there must be some who shrink from it as from a bitter mockery. Of such are those who, loving deeply, have lost, or fear to lose, the object of their fond idolatry; of such are those to whom, gifted, perhaps, with an even wider capacity of affection, such a fear would seem a blessing, for then they would not have toiled through a lifetime lonely-hearted. “A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!” God comfort those who shudder at such kindly greeting!
One short month since, a little space of time, but more than long enough for the performance of many a deeper tragedy than that to which we are about to refer, an artist, glancing into the sunny breakfast-parlour of Ashburn Rectory, might have made a pretty picture of the group on which his eye would have fallen.
That gentleman (in rags he would equally have looked such) with the calm, high forehead, mild eye, and earnest, thoughtful mouth, must be the father of the family; for his dark hair shows many a silver thread, and the lines that appear upon his still smooth brow can scarcely be the result of mental occupation only; but, if we are right in our conjecture, whence did that curly-pated nine-year-old urchin, seated upon his knee, contrive to get his arch, merry face? for he can scarcely have “come alive” out of one of Murillo’s paintings, to give light and life to our family sketch. Oh! we see, it is his mother’s countenance the rogue has appropriated, only the mischief in it is all his own; for the expression of her still-beautiful features is chastened and pensive, as of one who has lived and loved, and done angels’ work on earth, until the pure soul within has stamped its impress on the outward form.