Ah, me! it is a dreary thing to feel alone in the world—to have no eye brighten at our coming, no voice ever ready with its eager welcoming, nothing to tell us we are beloved, and that fond thoughts and wishes are around our onward pathway. O, ye who have never felt this worst of desolations—ye whose best affections bind ye still, who have no link broken, no yearnings unfulfilled, fold to your hearts the precious blessing that lives in domestic ties and speaks in household love, and greet kindly and gently those whose life is lonely—who look around them and find no answering gaze, who pine with many tears for one glimpse of the tenderness whose living light is daily yours, who go forward sadly and silently, with none to love them, save those who are angels in Heaven.
But there is a romance in every one’s experience, evanescent though it be; and at length its bright change rose upon Mary’s existence. I heard she was soon to be married, to a young clergyman, of whom all spoke in terms of approval and admiration. I sincerely rejoiced at an event so calculated to relieve at once her perplexities and regrets, and to summon sweet visions for one who had too long lived without affection in the world. I wrote to her, expressing all I felt—all my fervent hopes for her dawning welfare. I longed impatiently for her answer, anxious to discover if she realized as I wished the brighter career opening before her; but several weeks wended on, and brought me no reply. It was from another source I learned the dangerous and protracted illness of her lover, and a paper, tremulously directed by Mary’s hand, at length informed me of his death.
Finally a letter came, with its black seal. It was the last farewell of one who loved me—the last pouring forth of tenderness from a heart that was broken; and yet, sorrowful as those lines were, they spoke of hopes unshadowed and immortal—of a pilgrimage troubled and toilsome, but full of reward, and of all an enthusiast’s delusive anticipations in the sacred enterprise before her.
She wrote on the eve of her departure from her native land, and with her singular, acquired shrinking from the avowal of her feelings, she made no allusion to the connection recently broken; and not a word revealed the grief that clouded over her fairest prospects and sent her forth an exile. Frequently afterward I saw her name mentioned as one of unwavering zeal in her adopted cause, and faithfully devoted to the laborious responsibilities of her mission. But between herself and her early friends a gulf seemed to be, perhaps because she did not wish to revive the over-powering recollections of the past. The absence of all communication with those once dear to her, must have been intentional, for she was not one to forget. Three years of this unbroken existence of care and labor had gone by, and then I had thus accidentally learned the mournful doom of a being endowed with all earth’s purest impulses, yet so soon recalled from its wanderings. Hers is no uncommon history—for many such are on our daily annals. O! give them kind thoughts and words, for these are the sad heart’s treasured gems!
THIS WORLD OF OURS.
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BY S. D. ANDERSON.
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This world of ours is beautiful—right beautiful, I ween,