Farewell! Ah, what sadness breathes in that one wee word. It is one that in print should be put in the faintest type; and when spoken it should be but breathed or whispered.
Says the Anglo-Scottish poet Byron—
“Farewell!
For in that word—that fatal word—howe’er
We promise—hope—believe—there breathes despair.”
. . . . . .
Not so, poet of my earliest years! For if we meet no more here below, may we not hope to meet again in another and better world than this? Then why “despair”?
Leona’s parting with her congregation, and her last sermon, were quite affecting. Strange how the religion of Christ can soften the heart of even the savage.
There was not a dry eye in all that little church, as they crowded round her to touch her hand before she departed. Hardly, indeed, could they prevail upon themselves to let her depart.
Just before Leona’s boat rounded a wooded cape in the lagoon, and would be seen no more by those she was leaving, she looked back. They were still all there—disconsolate, dreary.
She stood up in the boat, and waved her handkerchief.