“Reuben, Sarah! what can you mean? My child, my Ruth!” but voice and almost power failed, for such a trembling seized her limbs that Reuben was compelled to support her as she sat. It was but for a moment, for the next a light figure had bounded into the room, followed by Simeon and Joseph, Maurice and Leah.
“Mother! mother! mother! They need not tell me where you are. You need not come to your poor blind Ruth. I can see your dear face—see it once again.”
The widow had sprung up from her chair; but ere she had made one step forward her child was in her arms—was fixing those long-closed eyes upon her face as if they would take in every feature with one delighted gaze. One look was sufficient. A deadly faintness, from over-excited feelings, passed over the widow’s heart; but as she felt Ruth’s passionate kisses on her lips and cheeks, life returned in a wild burst of thanksgiving, and the widow folded her child closer and yet closer to her heart, and, overpowered by joy as she had never been by sorrow, “she lifted up her voice and wept.”
Reader, our task is done—for need we say it was the benevolent exertion of Miss Leon, under a merciful Providence, which procured the last most unlooked-for blessing to the widow and her family. She had remarked there was a slight change in the appearance of the child’s eyes, had taken her without delay to the most eminent oculist of the day, and received his opinion that sight might be restored. The rest, to a character such as hers, was easy; and thus twice was she the means of materially brightening the happiness of the Perez family; for, though we had not space in our last chapter to dilate on it, it had been actually through her means the innocence of Levison had been discovered, though she herself was at the time scarcely conscious how. She had mentioned it to everybody she thought likely to be useful in discovering it, had been laughed at for her folly in believing such a tale, warned against taking up the guilt or innocence of such a person’s character, and, in short, almost every one dissuaded her from mentioning the subject; it really would do her harm. But she had persevered against even her own hope of effecting good, and was, as we have seen, successful.
Before we quite say farewell, we would ask our readers if we have indeed been happy enough in this simple narration to make one solemn and most important truth clear as our own heart would wish—that, however dark may be our horizon, however our prayers and trust may for a while seem unheeded, our eager wishes denied us, our dearest feelings the mere means of woe, yet there is an answering and pitying God above us still, who, when He bids us “commit our ways unto Him, and trust also in Him,” has not alone the power, but the will, the loving-kindness, the infinite mercy, to “bring it to pass.” My friends, that God is still our God; and though the events of our simple tale may have no origin in real life, is there one amongst us who can look back upon his life, and prayers, and thoughts, and yet say that overruling Providence is but fiction, for we feel it, know it not? Oh, if so, it is his own heart, not the love and word of his God, at fault. All may not be blessed so visibly as the widow and her family, but all who wait on and trust in the Lord will have their reward, if not on earth, yet dearer, more gloriously in heaven.
The Stone-Cutter’s Boy of Possagno.
A SKETCH FROM HIS LIFE.