This information was conveyed to me at the first favorable opportunity, and when Louis enjoined secrecy upon me, he expressed great pleasure with Mr. Benton, and said:
"Oh! Miss Emily. Little mother is so beautiful; she is always a picture. When the artist adds to the charming portrait the dress and the little pearls she wore to receive me, it will be so real I shall want to ask it to speak to me, and when she leaves me I can look at it, and in my heart hear her say 'Louis my dear boy.' You love her very much, do you not, Emily?"
"Oh, Louis!" I cried, "do not talk so, everybody says she is too good and beautiful to live, and it is a thought too bitter, I cannot bear it."
He turned the conversation into another channel, and talked so strongly about his great desire to master this art of painting, while I wondered to myself how it had happened that these hearts were gathered to our own and had become members of our household, coming, as they did, like rare exotics, to live and blossom among us plain hollyhocks and dandelions. Hal I could liken to a rare flower, but then he was only one among our number, and in all our family and friends there were none possessing the gifts of these two souls which had come to us so strangely.
Aunt Hildy said, "The ways of life are past all comprehending." I thought so too. Christmas came on Sunday in this year of our Lord eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, and for this I rejoiced and was glad. When it came on a week-day, it seemed like Sunday, and although now and then we had some really interesting sermons, there was not enough to fill two sabbaths coming so near together, and it gave me a restless sort of feeling, especially so, when I knew how quiet and solemn my father used to be all day, and also his great desire that we should imitate him.
I had been a member of our old church three years, and while I desired to live a Christian life, I could never feel that a long face, and solemnly pronounced words made any difference in my real life. Father did not believe any more in long faces than I did, still, I think from fear of neglecting any part of his duty, he maintained a serious demeanor from the break of our Sabbath days to their close. He had an unusually beautiful way of asking a blessing that always gave me a happy feeling. He merely said in a pleasant way, and with open eyes: "We should be very thankful for this meal; may we have wisdom to prepare no unsavory dishes, and strength to earn for ourselves, and others if necessary, the bread we daily need." This gave us a thought (that never grew old with me) of the needs of our neighbor, and also seemed so rational, and fitted our needs so perfectly. Aunt Hildy called it a common-sense blessing. I remember well how she spoke of it, in contrast with Deacon Grover's long-drawn-out table prayers, saying with emphasis; "The man, if he is a deacon, has a right to grow better, and we know he asks God to bless things cattle couldn't eat."
Christmas, we all went to church, and although it was more than a mile, aunt Hildy refused to ride.
"Let me walk as long as I can, time enough to ride by and by, and I'm only fifty-eight years old, Mr. Minot," she said.
It was useless to urge her, and she came into church a few minutes later than we did, and sat in her own pew next ours. This church was an old-time affair, having been built by the early settlers. It had, as all those old churches had, square pews, a stove in its central portion with huge arms of pipe that stretched embracingly in all ways; and its pulpit was so high that I prevailed on father to sit back from the centre as far as we could and be comfortably warm, for it was breaking ones' neck to look at the minister, and the sermon was half lost if you could not see the play of his features. Our worship was of the Presbyterian order, and our present pastor a worthy man. This was all the church that belonged to us really. In the village which nestled in the valley two and a half miles south-west of us, like a child in the lap of its mother, there were three churches, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian, and many who attended our old church would have liked better to go to one of those, and at times did so, but it was quite a ride in winter, and for this reason our church was better filled at this season than in the summer days.
A new branch of belief had latterly developed itself somewhat in our neighborhood, and this embraced the thought of universal salvation. There had been meetings held at the houses of some of our friends, and once or twice mother and myself had attended.