“I charge you to remember me, with all fraternal kindness, to our new sister-in-law. I suppose I shall have to beg pardon personally for various bygone affrays, of which I was the provoker long ago, ‘when we were bairns.’ Tell Mary I am very much afraid she will be following James’s example, and that she must positively let me be first, and for yourself, dear Christian, believe me always
“Your very affectionate brother,
“Halbert Melville.”
The first night of the year fell on a happy household. The senior of all, its head, satisfied and self-complacent; his grave and gentle daughter, full of such hopeful and pleasant thoughts as stifled the strange misgivings and forebodings that had sprung up within her when she had read the character of that much esteemed friend, who already seemed to have secured so large a portion of her brother’s affection—in Halbert’s letter; and the younger pair, as became the evening of so great a holiday, tired out with their rejoicing. The evening closed cheerily around them, and threw its slumberous curtain about every separate resting-place, as though it had a charge over them in their peaceful sleep, and predicted many a sweet awakening and many a prosperous day.
CHRISTIAN MELVILLE.
EPOCH II.
Behold the tempter!—to the expectant air
The hoarse-voiced wind whispers its coming dread,
And ancient Ocean from his mighty head
Shakes back the foaming tangles of his hair,
Gathering his strength that giant power to dare,
That chafes to fury all his thousand waves,
And digs in his deep sand unlooked for graves,
Whelming the hapless barks that voyage there.
Fierce is the rage of elemental strife;
Yet who may tell how far exceeds that war
That rends the inner seat of mental life,
Veils the soul’s sky—shuts out each guiding star.
The fiercest tempest raging o’er the sea,
But pictures what the might of mental storms may be.