And in sickness,--sickness that you
almost covet for the sympathy it brings,--that hand of hers resting on
your fevered forehead, or those fingers playing with the scattered
locks, are more full of kindness than the loudest vaunt of friends; and
when your failing strength will permit no more, you grasp that cherished
hand with a fulness of joy, of thankfulness, and of love, which your
tears only can tell.
She is good; her hopes live where the angels live. Her kindness and
gentleness are sweetly tempered with that meekness and forbearance which
are born of Faith. Trust comes into her heart as rivers come to the
sea. And in the dark hours of doubt and foreboding you rest fondly upon
her buoyant Faith, as the treasure of your common life; and in your
holier musings you look to that frail hand, and that gentle spirit, to
lead you away from the vanities of worldly ambition to the fulness of
that joy which the good inherit.
----Is Laura Dalton such an one?
VIII.
_A Broken Hope._
Youthful passion is a giant. It overleaps all the dreams, and all the
resolves of our better and quieter nature; and drives madly toward some
wild issue, that lives only in its frenzy.
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