Pagina 32 de 483

This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.

Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger

children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and

beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these

are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself

cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in

another world."

She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in

death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest

ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that

presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on

the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade

itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence

appeared a part of our own can have departed for ever-that the

brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the

sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed,

never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first

days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil,

then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has

not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should

I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?