The solemn scene was now preparing, and the bell began to toll, which Adolphus heard, and every stroke of it pierced his little innocent heart. The woman to whose care he had been left, having stept into another room, he took that opportunity to regain his liberty, got out of doors, and ran towards the churchyard. On his arrival there, he found the funeral service finished, and the grave filling up, when on a sudden, a cry was heard, "Let me be buried with my dear papa." He then jumped into the grave.
Such a scene must naturally affect every one who saw it. They pulled him out of the grave, and carried him home pale and speechless. For several days he refused almost every kind of sustenance, being at intervals subject to fainting fits. After some time, however, the consolations and advice of his good aunt appeared to have some weight with him, and the tempest in his little heart began to abate.
The affectionate conduct of Adolphus was the conversation for miles round their habitation, and at last reached the ears of a wealthy merchant, who had formerly been a little acquainted with the deceased Mr. Clarkson. He accordingly went to see the good Adolphus, and feeling for his distresses, took him home with him, and treated him as his son.
Adolphus soon gained the highest opinion of the merchant, and as he grew up, grew more and more in his favour. At the age of twenty, he conducted himself with so much ability and integrity, that the merchant took him into partnership, and married him to his only daughter.
Adolphus had always too great a soul to be ungenerous: for even during his younger days he denied himself every kind of extravagance, in order to support his aunt; and when he came into possession of a wife and fortune, he placed her in a comfortable station for the remainder of her life. As for himself, he every year, on his father's birth-day, passed it in a retired room alone, sometimes indulging a tear, and sometimes lifting up his heart to heaven, from whence he had received so much.
My little readers, if you have the happiness still to have parents living, be thankful to God, and be sensible of the blessing you enjoy. Be cautious how you do any thing to offend them; and should you offend them undesignedly, rest neither night nor day till you have obtained their forgiveness. Reflect on, and enjoy the happiness that you are not, like poor little Adolphus, bereft of your fathers and mothers, and left in the hands, though of a good, yet poor aunt.
