Ellen Middleton—A Tale

by Georgiana Fullerton

Her prayer was heard in the hour of trial; when he lost all earthly hope, and felt himself of all men the most miserable, God was with him. When, two days later, she murmured in his ear, as he was supporting her head against his breast,

"Read the prayers for dying," he read with a swelling heart and an unsteady voice, and at the end of each she faintly said, Amen. When he came to the last, no Amen was uttered on earth; the light was gone; the soul was fled; he was alone; and if God had not been with him then, he would indeed have been desolate and utterly forsaken, for he had few connections, few friends; he never opened his heart to any one, and in his grief he hid himself from the eyes of men, and communed with his own soul. God was with him during the first hours of agonising grief; during long days of gloom and silent loneliness; during years of calm sorrow, and quiet exertion, in which he did much good, and learnt that lesson which affliction teaches, "In all things to be more resigned than blest;" and when he dies He will be with him still, for He never forsakes in death those who have served Him in life. He travelled for a few years, and then returned to Hillscombe, where he lived much alone. Once, five years after Ellen's death, while he was calling on Mrs. Moore, at Hampstead, he accidentally met Mr. Escourt, who slightly bowed to him and left the room. Edward turned deadly pale; and that night he had to struggle long and deeply with himself, before he could utter the most solemn sentence in the Lord's Prayer. With Mr. Lacy he formed a strict intimacy, which lasted as long as the life of that venerable man.

Mrs. Middleton never returned to Elmsley; and spent her remaining days in one of those beautiful and quiet spots on the coast of Devonshire. The sight and sound of the sea soothed and quieted the restless nervousness from which she suffered. She would sit for hours on the shore and watch attentively the advancing and receding of the tide, or the fishermen's children playing on the sand at her feet.

"How much that woman must have suffered," was the remark often made by strangers as they passed by her, and observed the expression of her face.

Once a little scene occurred which excited some attention in the by-standers. A pretty little girl, whom Mrs. Middleton had often noticed and caressed, was playing near her with another child. They quarrelled, and in her anger the little girl struck her playmate, who fell on the ground.

A loud and wild cry burst from Mrs. Middleton's lips; she laid hold of the child, and in a hoarse and trembling voice exclaimed, "You know not what you do! you know not what you do!"

Abashed and terrified, the child looked at her and began to cry. She never forgot that scene, nor the words of the pale lady in black, who so loved the sea and its loud roar, and who had started so violently and shrieked so wildly, when she had struck her playfellow.

Of Alice! What shall I say of Alice? What did she once say of her favourite flower, her type and her emblem, for it bore in its bosom the Cross and the Crown of Thorns, and it was pure and spotless as those that

"Won Eve's matron smile in the world's opening glow."

She said it had done what God had sent it into the world to do. It had given her buds in the spring, and flowers in the summer; thoughts of joy in health, thoughts of peace in sickness, thoughts of God and of Christ always. Alice has gone and done likewise. She goes about doing good. She weeps with those who weep, she rejoices with those who rejoice, she feeds the hungry, she clothes the naked, she visits the sick and those in prison, she teaches the ignorant, she prays for the guilty. Into the haunts of misery, into the abodes of despair, she goes; and speaks of peace where peace has never been, and of hope to those in whose ears the words sound strangely. "When the ear hears her it blesses her; when the eye sees her it gives witness to her; and the blessings of those who are ready to perish come upon her. She is eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, a mother to the fatherless, and to those who have none to help them."