“Affection sheds its holiest light
Upon my husband’s tomb!”
And so with “tears, radiant emanations,” welling from the innermost depths of your soul, and glistening in your eyes, with intuitive delicacy, you placed that avowal of disappointed affection in your portfolio, deeming it there so safe from observation that not even Amy, your darling, would ever catch a glimpse of it. But, unfortunately, on the way to your own apartment, it escaped from its hiding-place, and was picked up upon the stair by one of your little nieces, who transferred it to the general Valentine-receptacle in the parlor. By and by you will doubtless ask yourself with regretful wonder, how it came there.
But the day is already too far spent to admit of a longer sojourn with the Gordons. And it is solely the fault of the recorder, gentle reader, if you are not able to bid them adieu with the firm conviction that theirs is one of those “homes of America” to whom Miss Bremer referred when she said so sweetly, “wherever there is a good husband and father, a true wife and mother, dutiful children, the spirit of freedom and peace and love, and that beautiful feeling of noble minds which makes them confer happiness on their fellow-creatures according to their gifts and wishes, there also would I fain be myself, to see, to enjoy, to shed tears of delight that paradise still is to be found on this poor earth.”
THE VALLEY OF SHADOW.
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BY HENRY B. HIRST.
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When daylight ends, where night begins,