CONCLUSION.

Months had rolled away, months crowded with incidents of interest to the personages in my story, and now Edith and Isa stand again on the summit of the grassy mound by Castle Lestrange, which overlooks a landscape so wide and so fair. They behold Nature no longer clad in the light-green drapery of spring, spangled with blossoms, but in the rich full foliage of summer, which the setting sun is bathing in golden glory. Edith’s blue eyes are gazing on the magnificent sky, where the bright orb of day, while sinking down on a throne of fiery clouds, is throwing upwards widening streams of light where rosy clouds, like islands of the blessed, softly float in clear blue ether. Never, even in Italy, had Edith witnessed a finer sunset; it seemed like a glimpse granted to mortals below of the coming glories of heaven.

“How resplendent is the sky!” exclaimed Edith, after a pause of silent admiration.

“And how beautiful the earth!” added Isa.

“Ah, on the eve of your bridal day, dearest, the prospect may well look fair in your eyes, but still it owes its chief beauty to the radiance above it.”

A FAIR PROSPECT.

“I think that it must always be so to the Christian,” observed Isa. “The very crown of earthly happiness is to think that it is not all earthly; that our Lord, who has joined our hearts together, will also join our hands; and that the union which He makes will endure when that sun itself is dark!” Isa’s eyes glistened with tears as she spoke, but they welled up from a deep fount of joy.

“Just look towards Wildwaste!” cried Edith; “they have finished that triumphal arch of evergreens and roses at which Lottie and her brother, and all the children of the hamlet, have been working so hard since daybreak. I never thought that Wildwaste could put on an appearance so bright and so gay. Every cottage has its garland, and I should not wonder if the manufactory itself burst into an illumination to-morrow.”

“I suspect that the enthusiasm and the rejoicing,” said Isa gayly, “is less on account of the wedding than to express the joy of the hamlet at Arthur Madden’s being appointed to succeed Mr. Bull. Old Bolder was speaking so warmly on the subject this morning. ‘There will be good days for Wildwaste yet,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve a pastor who will work, and pray while he works; who loves his people, and will make them love him! We’ll not have all the drunkenness and riot which have made Wildwaste a blot on the land! I’ve felt better ever since I heard the good news,’ he added, rubbing his hands; ‘and I’ll make a shift, I will, to throw away my crutches, and get to church the day that Mr. Arthur gives his first sermon.’”

“Every one welcomes their young clergyman as the benefactor of the place,” observed Edith.

“Lottie would be almost sorry to leave Wildwaste,” said Isa, “were she not going with me to Axe, where she will be close to her widowed mother, and able often to be with her.”

“The only person for whom I feel sorry in the midst of all this rejoicing,” observed Edith, “is your poor brother, Mr. Gritton. He will miss you so sadly, when all alone in that dreary house at Wildwaste.”

“I suspect that he will not be long alone,” said Isa.

“What!—is it true then?” asked Edith quickly, glancing up into the face of her companion; “but surely, surely it must grieve you to think of having Cora Madden as a sister!”

“Some months ago it would have grieved me inexpressibly,” replied Isa gravely. “I should have deemed such a connection a heavy misfortune; but Cora is changed, so much changed, since her illness.”

“I hear that the small-pox has left deep traces—”

“Yes, on her character,” interrupted Isa. “Cora is much softened, I hope humbled; there is so much less of asperity in her manner, of sarcasm in her tone. Is it not strange, Edith, that she of whom I once spoke so harshly when you and I stood here conversing together, should seem now to turn towards me with the affection of a sister?”

“You have indeed been a sister to her, dear Isa; often have I wondered at your courage in braving infection, and your unselfishness in enduring quarantine, and all for one whom you dis——whom you could not love. But yours was the courage, the self-devotion of faith, and God guarded you from the danger.”

“God has indeed crowned me with loving-kindness and tender mercies!” exclaimed Isa, whose quick eye had caught sight at that moment of a well-known form advancing up the avenue. All her cares and fears, all her difficulties and trials, had now been exchanged for exceeding joy; every cloud in her sky, like those round the sun, had become a golden mansion of light.

Shall earth be called only “a vale of tears,” and all its hopes be compared to a withering leaf? Is happiness below but a fading vision? Not so; for even here the Almighty can throw sunshine around His children, and sweeten their cup with drops from that fountain of bliss whose full stream shall refresh their spirits above! But for whom is such happiness prepared? Not for the fearful and unbelieving, not for the selfish and self-willed, but for those who, like Gideon, have obeyed God’s word and chosen His service, and rendered faithful obedience to Him whose mercy hath redeemed them. The Christian must not look for the victory without the struggle, nor hope for peace while the smallest sin retains dominion within the soul; it is on the night of conflict that dawns the morn of success; to God’s faithful warriors, faint, yet pursuing, was given the triumph of faith over Midian!

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