"Do you think so?" he asked, earnestly. "Look again at this merry face, and tell me if it ever ought to have been saddened by sorrow."
"But, you know, 'by the sorrow of the countenance the heart is made better,'" I replied, wishing to soothe the grief which he evidently felt, as he held the miniature for me to look at it again.
"Better!" repeated Dick, sternly. "There could not be a better heart than my sweet sister Louisa always had. That picture gives only a faint idea of her lovely face, for it represents its least pleasing expression, and she had not then reached the height of her beauty. Yet it is very like," he added, gazing sadly upon it. "Even now I seem to hear those rosy lips utter their first sweet lisp,—'Dear brother.'"
"No wonder that you loved her, if she was even prettier than this!" I exclaimed; "for I could lay down my life for such a sister."
"I did not love her," he answered, to our great surprise. "You are astonished at the confession; but I am not sure that, affectionate as you boys both seem, you either of you know what true love is. I was proud of Louisa. When she was an infant I liked to hear her praises; and as she grew more and more beautiful, and began to pour out the first woman feelings of her guileless heart upon me, I received them with gratitude, and really believed she was, what I called her, 'my heart's treasure.'"
"Then why do you say that you did not love her?" I inquired, hesitatingly.
"Because years have convinced me," he replied, "that I was even then, what I have ever since been, one mass of selfishness. I never gave up a single wish for her pleasure, or made one effort to add to her happiness. Never say, my boys, that you love any one, till you find your own will giving way to the desire to please them, and that you can cheerfully renounce your most cherished plans for their sake."
As he said this, Bennie, I asked myself whether it could be true that I did not even love my mother, and tried to think whether I had ever made the least sacrifice of my will to her comfort. O, how many acts recurred to my mind of selfish imposition upon her yielding gentleness! I am afraid that we boys all take the kindness of our parents too much as a matter of course, and do not often enough question ourselves whether we are making any return for their love.
But I am getting to scribble away my own thoughts quite too freely. Yet it is only a year since I could think of no other commencement to a letter than "As this is composition day, I thought that I would write to you."
As Dick thus spake of his own want of consideration for the feelings of his little sister, he became exceedingly agitated and was unable to proceed. Clarendon, who had finished reading his papers, came to the side of the boat where we were sitting, and told me that he was going to turn in, and that it was quite time for me to be asleep too. I was very reluctant to go, but when brother was out of hearing, Dick said,—"It is as well. I find I have not self-command enough to go over the sad story of my own folly. If you will give me a pencil and some paper, to-morrow I will write such portions of it as I think may interest or be of service to you. Do not criticize the expressions, for it is many years since I have done any thing of the kind, and the life I have led has about destroyed all traces of my early education."