The brothers looked long at the gems.
“Ah!” whispered the younger, “if our mother could only have such beautiful things!”
At last, however, the casket was closed and carried carefully away.
“Is it true, Cornelia, that you have no jewels?” asked her friend. “Is it true, as I have heard it whispered, that you are poor?”
“No, I am not poor,” answered Cornelia, and as she spoke she drew her two boys to her side; “for here are my jewels. They are worth more than all your gems.”
I am sure that the boys never forgot their mother’s pride and love and care; and in after years, when they had become great men at Rome, they often thought of this scene in the garden. And the world still likes to hear the story of Cornelia’s jewels.—Fifty Famous Stories.
II. NEW YEAR’S EVE.
It was New Year’s Eve. An aged man was standing by a window. He raised his mournful eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the stars were floating like white lilies on the surface of a clear calm lake. Then he cast them on the earth where few more hopeless beings than himself now moved towards their certain goal—the tomb.
Already he had passed sixty of the stages which lead to it, and had brought from his journey nothing but errors and remorse. His health was destroyed, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age devoid of comfort.
The days of his youth rose up in a vision before him, and he recalled the solemn moment when his father had placed him at the entrance of two roads—one leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile harvest, and resounding with soft, sweet songs; the other leading the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue, where poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.