clay, covered
the churchyard. In summer, when the grass was of an emerald green and
the willows waved their weeping branches with a gentle rustle against
the clustering roses, whose breath perfumed and whose blossoms
beautified the place of graves, it was sweet, though sad, to wander amid
the ruins of life, and meditate on its departed joys.

The broken shaft, twined with a drooping wreath carved in bas-relief,
which rose above my mother's ashes, and the marble stone which marked
the grave of Peggy, were erected the year after their deaths. The money
which rewarded my services in the academy had been thus appropriated, or
rather a portion of it. The remainder had been given to the poor, as
Mrs. Linwood always supplied my wardrobe, as she did Edith's, and left
no want of my own to satisfy, not even a wish to indulge. I mention this
here, because it occurred to my mind that I had not done Mrs. Linwood
perfect justice with regard to the motives which induced her to
discipline my character.

I did not see my father for hours after his return. He retired to his
chamber, and did not join the family circle till the evening lamps were
lighted. He looked excessively pale, even wan, and his countenance
showed how much he had suffered. Edith was singing when he came in, and
he made a motion for her to continue; for it was evident he did not wish
to converse. I sat down by him without speaking; and putting his arm
round me, he drew me closely to his side. The plaintive melody of
Edith's voice harmonized with the melancholy tone of his feelings, and
seemed to shed on his soul a balmy and delicious softness. His spirit
was with my mother in the dreams of the past, rather than the hopes of
the future; and the memory of its joys lived again in music's heavenly
breath.

It is a blessed thing to be remembered in death as my mother was. Her
image was enshrined in her husband's heart, in the bloom and freshness
of unfaded youth, as he had last beheld her,--and such it would ever
remain. He had not seen the mournful process of fading and decay. To
him, she was the bride of immortality; and his love partook of her own
freshness and youth and bloom. Genius is _La fontaine de jouvence_, in
whose bright, deep waters the spirit bathes and renews its morning
prime. It is the well-spring of the heart,--the Castaly of the soul. St.
James had lived amid forms of ideal beauty, till his spirit was imbued
with their loveliness as with the fragrance