The crowd about the bridal pair opened, to admit a white-haired, half-blind old man, who came leaning on the arm of his rosy grand-daughter. Farther Herrick was a superannuated deacon, whose good words and works had won for him a place in every heart of that assembly.
"They told me she was going," he murmured to himself; "they say 'tis her wedding. I want to see my little girl again—bless her!"
Ellen sprang forward, and laid both her white trembling hands in the large hand of the good old man. He drew her near his failing eyes; and looked searchingly into her young, soul-lit countenance.
"I can just see you, darling; and they tell me I shall never see you again! Well, well, if we go in God's way we shall all get to Heaven, and it's all light there!" He raised his hand over her head, and added, solemnly, "The blessing of blessings be upon thee, my child. Amen!"
"Amen!" echoed the voice of Henry Neville.
And Ellen looked up with the look of an angel.
So she went from us! Oh! the last moment of that parting hour has burnt itself into my being for ever! Could the human heart endure the agony of parting like that, realized to be indeed the last—lighted by no ray of hope for eternity! Would not reason reel under the pressure?
It was hard to bear; but I have no words to tell of its bitterness. She went to her missionary life, and we learned at last to live without her, though it was many a month before the little ones could forget to call on "Sister Ellen" in any impulse of joy, grief, or childish want. Then the start and the sigh, "Oh, dear, she's gone—sister is gone!" And fresh tears would flow.
Gone, but not lost; for that First Marriage in the family opened to us a fountain of happiness, pure as the spring of self-sacrifice could make it. Our household darling has linked us to a world of needy and perishing spirits—a world that asks for the energy and the aid of those who go from us, and those who remain in the dear country of their birth. God bless her and her charge! Dear sister Ellen! there may be many another breach in the family—we may all be scattered to the four winds of heaven-but no change can come over us like that which marked the FIRST MARRIAGE.