id she not deal to me, one summer eve,
the best bower in the pack, who reigns over all the kings and queens in
or out of Christendom, and whose sway remains supreme through all the
changing suits of time and fortune? He does not sport the garb of those
elder knaves, it is true, though he is knavish enough when occasion
offers,--he is at this moment inspecting a new jack-knife, and will, I
fear, whittle off one of his dear, chubby fingers,--but he outranks all
the crowned monarchs in the world. Whom do I mean? Whom, but Thomas the
First, Thomas the Only, my first-born, royal son? When that king of your
own heart was taken from you,--when the little frocks, richer than
ermine robes, were hid away in sacred recesses,--when the little toys,
mightier than jewelled sceptres, were garnered up and kept as holy
relics,--when the house no longer echoed to the tones of the sweet
childish voice, and the silence of the grave settled over earth,--when
the glare of day was hateful and the darkness of night fearful, and
life, without the darling one, was living death,--had you not then a
partner, a kind, tender, sympathizing partner, who took you to his
heart, and bowed his head with you, and knit you closer to him by a bond
the strongest life can weave, the bond of sorrow shared? And look
farther back into the past, before sorrow came, and when light-hearted,
beaming, hoping joy dwelt within you. When you used to catch Frank's eye
with those tiny boots and flowing skirts, as you gracefully swept by
him, had you not a partner to share those throbbing emotions? Were not
all the hopes, dreams, and doubts, which then awoke, new-born within
you, reechoed and fondly shared? Did he not bear away, for days and
nights, the brightness of your smile, the bend of your angelic head, and
the trip of the tiny boots? And when the Heaven-sent moment came for the
tongue to tell what the heart had so long cherished in silence, was
there not a partner before you who dealt out words which filled your
soul with rapture, and helped you to win the dearest prize that earth
affords,--a mutual love? And look farther on into the distant future,
when the tiny boots shall have long been cast aside, and the flowing
silks shall have sunken into inexpansive, sober gray,--when the early
joys and the early sorrows shall fade into the dim, half-remembered
past,--when time shall have blanched the curly locks which first caught
your girlish fancy, and lined the fair brow yo