Gambolling thus, like children, and happy in childish pleasures, their united lives flowed smoothly on, like some full, bright, unobstructed stream. The birth of a daughter was like the opening of a pure lily on the stream. Their happiness was now complete. Their grateful souls asked for nothing but a continuance of present blessings. But, alas, sudden as the rising of a thunder cloud, a deep shadow fell on their sunny prospect. William was called away a few days on business. He left home full of life and love, and was brought back a shattered corpse. He had been killed by an accident, in the rail-road cars. Never had Sibella known any sorrow approaching the intensity of this sorrow. It saddened her to bid farewell to that first love-picture, which never emerged out of the mistiness of dream-land; but this sober certainty of wedded happiness was such a living true reality, that all her heart-strings bled, when it was wrenched from her so suddenly. Her suffering soul would have been utterly prostrated by the dreadful blow, had it not been for the blessed ministration of her babe, and the necessity of continuing to labour for its future support and education. The body of William was buried in a pretty little grove on her father’s farm; and every year the mound was completely covered with a fresh bed of Ladies’ Delights, which his little girl learned to call “Farder’s Fower.”
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Time passed and brought healing on its wings. Sibella never expected to know happiness again, but she had attained to cheerful resignation. Her little girl of three years lived at the farm, under the good grandmother’s care. She continued to teach in the city, spending all her vacations, and most of her Sundays, at the old homestead. In her memory lay a sunny island covered with Pansies, and often watered with tears. That other island of Eglantines had floated far away, and had scarcely a moonlighted existence. But one Sunday evening, as she returned from school, she found the little one watching for her, as usual. The indulgent grandmother had just given her an Eglantine blossom, for which she had been teazing. In her eagerness to bestow something on her mother, the child thrust it into her face, exclaiming “Mamma’s Fower!” That simple phrase awoke sleeping memories. Not for years had the blooming lanes of old England been so distinctly pictured in the mirror of her soul. That night, she dreamed Edward Vernon met her in the prairie and gave her a torch-flower he had gathered. The child’s exclamation had produced the train of thought of which the dream was born; and the dream induced her to look at the verses which had long remained unopened. Ten years had passed since they were written. The paper was worn at the edges, and the Eglantine blossom was yellow and wrinkled. Still the sight of it recalled the very look and tone with which it was offered. The halo of glory with which her youthful imagination had invested the rhymes was dimmer now; and yet they seemed to her “si belle!”
The afternoon of that day, she sat with her mother, busily employed trimming a bonnet for their little darling, who was equally busy under the window, sticking an apron-full of wild-flowers into the ground, to make an impromptu garden. A voice called out, “Sir, will you have the goodness to give me a little help? My carriage has broken down.” Sibella started suddenly, and the bonnet fell from her hand. “What is the matter with you?” said her mother. “It is merely some traveler in trouble. That bad place in the road yonder must be mended.” Sibella resumed her work, saying, “I am strangely nervous to-day.” But in the secret chambers of her own mind, there was a voice whispering, “My dream! My dream! Can it be, as some people say, that there is a magnetic influence on the soul when certain individuals approach, each other?” Presently, her father entered, leading a small boy, “Take care of this little fellow,” said he, “his father’s carriage has broken down, out by the hill.” The young widow rose, and greeted the little stranger with such motherly tenderness, that he looked up in her face confidingly, with a half-formed smile. But she gazed into his eyes so earnestly, that he turned away partly afraid. The little girl offered him her flowers, and they sat down on the floor to play together. It was not long, before the farmer entered with the traveler; a refined looking gentleman, apparently about thirty years old. The old lady rose to greet him; but Sibella stooped to gather up the ribbons, which had fallen from her trembling hands. Browned as he was by wind and sun, she recognized him instantly. In fact she had already recognized his eyes and smile in the face of his son. She wondered whether he would know her. Was she like an Eglantine now? Having resumed a sufficient degree of self-command, while picking up the ribbons, she rose, and advanced toward him, with a blush and a smile. He started—uttered an exclamation of surprise—then seized her hand and kissed it.
“Bless my soul! It’s Mr. Vernon! And I didn’t know him!” exclaimed Mrs. Flower. “Well this is strange, I do declare!”
When their mutual surprise had subsided, many questions about old England were asked and answered. But it was not until after supper that their guest spoke of his own plans. Pointing to his son, he said, “I am a lonely man, with only that one tie to bind me to the world. My father and mother are dead; and as it was for their sakes only that I consented to endure the fetters of over-civilized life, I formed the resolution of coming into these Western wilds, to live with nature in her freedom and simplicity. I was not altogether selfish in this movement, for I felt confident it was the best way to form a manly character for my son. No cousin Alfred will stand in his sunshine here. Come, Edward,” said he, “introduce your little friend to me.” The boy sprang forward joyfully, and climbed his father’s knee. “The little friend must sit on the other knee,” said he. “Go and bring her. You are not gallant to the little lady.” But the little lady was shy. She hid herself behind a chair, and would not be easily persuaded. At last, however, her mother coaxed her to be led up to the stranger gentleman, to see him open his gold watch. He placed her on his knee and asked her name; and, emboldened by his caresses, she looked up in his face, and answered, “Teena.” He glanced inquiringly toward her mother, who, blushing slightly, answered, “I named her Eglantina; but, in her lisping way, she calls herself Teena; and we have all adopted her fashion, except grandfather, who varies it a little by calling her Teeny.” A pleased expression went over Mr. Vernon’s face, as he replied, “You did well to name her for yourself; for she resembles you, as the bud of the Eglantine resembles the blossom.” As he spoke thus, the ten intervening years rolled away like a curtain, and they both found themselves walking again in the blooming lanes of old England.
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Weeks passed, and Mr. Vernon still remained a guest at Flower Farm, as it was called. He entered into negotiations for a tract of land in the neighbourhood, and found pleasant occupation in hunting, fishing, and planning his house and grounds. Sibella and the children often accompanied him in his excursions. The wide-spread prairie, covered with a thick carpet of grass and brilliant flowers, and dotted with isolated groves, like islands, charmed him with its novelty of beauty. “I am perpetually astonished by the profusion and gorgeousness of nature in this region,” said he. He gathered one of the plants at his feet, and presenting it to Sibella, asked whether that glowing blossom was not appropriately named the Torch Flower. “What do you think of dreams?” she replied; then seeing that he was surprised by the abruptness of the question, she told him she had dreamed, the night before his arrival, that she met him on the prairie, and received a torch-flower from his hand. He smiled, and said, “Its flame-colour might answer for Hymen’s torch.” He looked at her smilingly as he spoke; for he was bolder now than when he wrote the verses. Seeing the crimson tide mount into her cheeks, he touched the flower in her hand, and said, “It blushes more deeply than my old favourite the Eglantine.” To relieve her embarrassment, Sibella began to inquire about Mrs. Barton and her neighbours; adding, “Among all these questions, I have not yet asked if your sister is living.”
“She is what the world calls living,” he replied. “She has married a wealthy old merchant, who dresses her in velvet and diamonds; and his lady rewards him by treating him with more indifference than she does her footman. Her acquaintance envy her elegant furniture and costly jewels; and when they exclaim, ‘How fortunate you are! You are surrounded by every thing the heart can desire!’ she replies, with a languid motion of her fan, ‘Yes, every thing—except love.’ Julia never forgave me for marrying the daughter of a poor curate; but she was like you, Sibella, and that was what first interested me. If she had lived, I probably should never have seen America; but after her death, I was lonely and restless. I wanted change. I knew that you had been in this country several years; but I cannot say you were distinctly connected with my plans. You never answered my letters, and I supposed you had long since forgotten me. But I never saw an Eglantine without thinking of you; and while I was crossing the Atlantic, I sometimes found myself conjecturing whether I should ever happen to meet you, and whether I should find you married.” Long explanations and confessions followed. The authorship of the mysterious verses was acknowledged, and their preservation avowed. The conversation was exceedingly interesting to themselves, but would look somewhat foolish on paper. It has been well said, that “the words of lovers are like the rich wines of the south; delicious in their native soil, but rendered vapid by transportation.”
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