“And Johnnie and Nellie, and Cora and Willie?”
“Johnnie is a dignified gentleman now, very rich, very honorable, with a beautiful wife, and two pet children that call me Auntie. Cora married a clergyman, and is in China, teaching the heathen: she is very noble, very true, and full of zeal.
“Little Nellie grew to be a lovely woman, so very bright and happy that it lightened one’s heart to look at her. She stepped as if treading on air, and was full of music, playing and singing through life, with a promise of joy in her future. Every body loved Nellie Bell, and admired her as we do some beautiful, rare flower, thinking her about as fit as a blossom to bear the ills and cares of life. And yet Nellie was the heroine of the family, caring for her mother, who grew blind, with the most beautiful tenderness, bearing the burden of her papa’s moroseness and repinings, and putting away, with a sublime self-sacrifice, all the fair and lovely dreams that must have filled her heart, to be the comforter and helper of their old age.
“By and by, uncle Bell lost his property, and Nellie generously gave up her own dowry, left by her grandmother, to support him—wearing a plain dress, when she delighted in gay colors and soft fabrics; giving up her books, her pony, her music, and doing many things with her own dainty fingers, that they might not miss the servants, some of whom she was obliged to dismiss.
“And her natural gayety softened into the loveliest, calmest content. Her eyes grew deep and radiant, and her lips smiled always; her brow was as smooth too as ever, and nothing could change the child look of ingenuousness in her face.
“I think I have never seen anything so pure and sweet as her ways. She seems living ever near to God, taking blessings from His hand, and when He sends sorrow, smiling with the same patience; because both alike come from her Father.
“A few years ago, there was a new joy in her life, and the cup was dashed from her lip as she was about to drink it. A sudden death came to one who was to have been her husband, death from home, when he was not dreaming of it, and while she was even waiting and watching for him day by day.
“She was waiting for the words, ‘He is here,’ and they told her, ‘He is dead’—and the strange event threatened to put out the light and warmth in her young heart for a time; but it brightened again, and she took up her duties with patience, sweetness, peace, even happiness, because God is good, and his presence in the world is beautiful, because a long life teaches us much, and we must thank the Giver for it.”
“How very sad,” said the children.
“You would not call her sad, if you were to see her. She, I am sure, would not have her lot changed.”