"Oh, auntie, that isn't you!" Bessie had exclaimed, and the other children having come into the room, the picture was shown to them also. Since that day they had never seen it, but Hugh retained a vivid remembrance of the picture, and, as Aunt Faith looked through her desk to find the paper, something in her face recalled it to his mind, and there came across him, like a revelation, a vision of what she was at eighteen. Faith Warrington at eighteen! Faith Warrington, who had long been Mrs. Sheldon with her gray hair and pale face. Going up to his room, Hugh seated himself by the window, and opening the paper, read the following lines:—
"Far back within the cycles of the past,
A train of centuries rolls,
From out whose cloudy borders came the day
Of memory for all souls.
How long it seems, a thousand years ago!
How dark and weary, if we did not know
A thousand years are but as yesterday within His
sight,
Seeing that it is past like one brief watch within the
night!
Could they have known, those men of childlike faith,
Half ignorant, half sublime,
The fitness of the souls' memorial day
Falling within the time
Of Nature's holy calm, her blest repose,—
When all the land with loving fervor glows,
And from the naked woods, the empty fields, through
the soft haze,
Her work well done, her garners full, she offers up
her praise.
A stillness fills the consecrated air,—
The blustering winds that swept
The red and yellow leaves in giddy rounds,
By mighty hands are kept
In their four corners, while the liquid gold
And purple tints over the earth unrolled,
And full of mystery and heavenly peace, as though
the skies
Had opened, and let out the atmosphere of Paradise.
Departed souls! Their memory may come
With grief in Spring's soft hours,—
With weary, lonely sadness when our hands
Are gathering summer flowers,—
With wild despair in winter: when the graves
Are white with drifted snow, and wildly raves
The wind among the stones and monuments, in
accents dread,
Calling in vain the sculptured names of our beloved
dead.
But in this golden dream-time of the year,
Our bitter murmurs cease;—
We seem to feel the presence of the dead,
Their shadowy touch of peace;
We seem to see their faces as we gaze
Longingly forth into the purple haze,
And hear the distant chorus of the happy souls at
rest,—
And catch the well-known accents of the voice we
loved the best."
All Souls' Day, November 2nd.
In the evening, as Aunt Faith was sitting on the piazza with Bessie, Mr. Leslie came up the walk; Sibyl was in the parlor playing soft chords on the piano, but she could hear his words as he spoke. Mr. Leslie's voice was deep, but clear, and his pronunciation perfectly distinct without any apparent effort. He did not obtrude the alphabet unpleasantly upon his hearers; he was not so anxious to show his correct pronunciation of "Been" as to force it to rhyme with "Seen;" he was not so much concerned with "Institute," as to te-u-ute the last syllable into undue importance; neither did he bombard his hearers with the arrogance of rolling rr's. Although his voice was not loud, any one occupying even the last seat in the chapel could not only hear him, but was absolutely invited to listen by the pleasant distinctness of the words.
"I am pleased to be able to tell you that Margaret and the children are safe in the farm-house, Mrs. Sheldon," he said, taking a seat on the piazza. "Poor girl, how glad she was to get there! She sent her grateful thanks to you."
"How did the children bear the ride?" asked Aunt Faith.