And just beyond the worn pavement a shadowy form again went flitting past him. There were drops of blood upon the white garments, and the face was like the face of one who walked in her sleep, and her hands hung wounded and powerless at her side. Cromwell paused with his horsemen under the dismantled May-pole before the village green. He saw the man who was to die at sunset standing up in the dusky air, tall as a king and beautiful as Absalom. He gazed with knitted brow and angry eye, but his lips did not give utterance to the quick command that trembled on them, for a girl came flying toward him. Pikeman and archer stepped aside to let her pass. She threw herself upon the turf at his horse’s feet; she lifted her bleeding and tortured hands to his gaze, and once more poured out her prayer for the life of her lover; with trembling lips she told him why Richard still lived—why the curfew had not sounded.
Lady Maud looking out of her latticed window at the castle, saw the great protector dismount, lift the fainting form in his arms and bear her to her lover. She saw the guards release their prisoner, and she heard the shouts of joy at his deliverance; then she welcomed the night that shut the scene out from her envious eye and sculptured her in its gloom.
At the next matin bell old Jasper died, and at curfew toll he was laid beside the wife who had died in his youth, but the memory of whom had been with him always.
—Bulletin, Haverhill, Mass.
Work every hour, paid or unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape thy reward. Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought. No matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
No one loves to tell a tale of scandal but to him that loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and silence the detracting tongue by refusing to hear. Never make your ear the grave of another’s good name.
There is nothing by which I have through life more profited than by the just observations, the good opinions, and sincere and gentle encouragement of amiable and sensible women.