“And I see a great many men riding,” said a little fellow still younger than she who had just spoken. Lucy, anxious to stop the children’s remarks, enticed them away from the window by giving them a picture-book to look at. Then turning to Mrs. Horton, she asked if she could not read something to her to amuse her.
“Amusement is out of the question, dear,” said the invalid, “but you may read something that will give me a useful lesson. Take the Bible, my child, and read the sermon on the mount. I always feel myself a better woman after I have read it.”
Lucy took her father’s large quarto Bible, and the children, leaving their own pictures, came to stand by her as she did so, for it was beautifully illustrated, and they were anxious to see the engravings, which they had seldom a chance of doing, as it was too valuable a book for them to be allowed to touch themselves. But just as Lucy was opening it, the little boy, who happened to turn his head to the window, exclaimed, “Look! look at that man standing up above all the rest, and flourishing something in his hand!” Mrs. Horton heaved a deep sigh, and turned her face toward the back of the sofa, whilst Lucy, making a motion to the children to be silent, began to read. But just as she had pronounced the words, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” a servant came to tell her she was wanted, and giving the children permission (by way of keeping them quiet) to look at the pictures whilst she was absent, she left the room. She was not gone many minutes, but when she came back she found that they had been disputing which should turn over the leaves, and in the struggle they had let the ponderous volume fall on the floor, where it still lay, with the leaves doubled in all directions. Mortified to see a book that her father had always forbidden the children to touch so abused, she ran to lift it up, and as she did so, two pieces of paper fell from between some of the leaves. But what was her surprise and delight, on looking at them, to see they were the two lost notes. Uttering a scream of delight, she ran out of the room, without even stopping to tell Mrs. Horton what she had found, from the fear that the auctioneer’s hammer might fall before she got within hearing. Camilla herself could scarcely have flown more rapidly across the intermediate fields, and just at the moment that the hammer was descending, evidently for the last time, she contrived to make her cry of “stop! stop!” heard, and the auctioneer’s hand was instantly arrested. The next moment Norman was at her side. The rest may be easily imagined. There is none, we presume, who will not rejoice at the defeat of Norman’s ungenerous persecutor; nor is there a heart so cold as not to sympathize with the invalid mother at finding she was still to remain in the home endeared to her by so many tender reminiscences, or with the young lovers, at the happy prospect that was opened out before them by the recovery of the lost notes.
AN HOUR AMONG THE DEAD.
(WRITTEN IN A CEMETERY.)
———
BY J. BEAUCHAMP JONES.
———
Alone, withdrawn from all the thoughtless throng,