"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid."
CHAPTER LVIII.
I wish my father could have seen the home of my youth, when he first beheld it, in the greenness of spring or the bloom of summer; but white, cold, and dazzling was the lawn, and bleak, bare, and leafless the grand old elms and the stately brotherhood of oaks that guarded the avenue.
With pride, gratitude, joy, and a thousand mingling emotions, I introduced my father into a dwelling consecrated by so many recollections of happiness and woe. The cloud was removed from my birth, the stain from my lineage. I could now exult in my parentage and glory in my father.
Julian was there, and welcomed St. James with enthusiastic pleasure, who, on his part, seemed to cherish for him even parental affection. With joy and triumph beaming in his eyes and glowing on his cheek, Julian took the lovely Edith by the hand, and introduced her as his bride. Still occupying her usual place in her mother's home, in all her sweetness, simplicity, and spirituality, it was difficult to believe any change had come over her destiny. She had not waited for my presence, because she knew the bridal wreath woven for her would recall the blighted bloom of mine. She had no festal wedding. She could not, while her brother's fate was wrapped in uncertainty and gloom.
One Sunday evening, after Mr. Somerville had dismissed the congregation with the usual benediction, Julian led Edith to the altar, and her mother stood by her side till the solemn words were uttered that made them one. So simple and holy were the nuptial rites of the wealthy and beautiful heiress of Grandison Place.
My father spoke in exalted terms of the young artist, of his virtues and his genius, the singleness of his heart, the uprightness of his principles, and the warmth and purity of his affections. Had he, my father, needed any passport to the favor of Mrs. Linwood, he could not have had a surer one; but her noble nature instantaneously recognized his congenial and exalted worth. He had that in his air, his countenance, and manner, that distinguished him from the sons of men, as the planets are distinguished by their clear, intense, and steadfast lustre among the starry ranks of heaven.
I gave him the manuscript my mother had left me, and at his request pointed out the road and the diverging path that led to the spot where her grave was made. I did not ask to accompany him, for I felt his emotions were too sacred for even his daughter to witness. I mourned that the desolation of winter was added to the dreariness of death; that a pall of snow, white as her winding-sheet and cold as her clay, covered the churchyard. In summer, when the grass was of an emerald green and the willows waved their weeping branches with a gentle rustle against the clustering roses, whose breath perfumed and whose blossoms beautified the place of graves, it was sweet, though sad, to wander amid the ruins of life, and meditate on its departed joys.
The broken shaft, twined with a drooping wreath carved in bas-relief, which rose above my mother's ashes, and the marble stone which marked the grave of Peggy, were erected the year after their deaths. The money which rewarded my services in the academy had been thus appropriated, or rather a portion of it. The remainder had been given to the poor, as Mrs. Linwood always supplied my wardrobe, as she did Edith's, and left no want of my own to satisfy, not even a wish to indulge. I mention this here, because it occurred to my mind that I had not done Mrs. Linwood perfect justice with regard to the motives which induced her to discipline my character.