CONCLUSION.
Months had rolled away, months crowded with incidents of interest to the
personages in my story, and now Edith and Isa stand again on the summit
of the grassy mound by Castle Lestrange, which overlooks a landscape so
wide and so fair. They behold Nature no longer clad in the light-green
drapery of spring, spangled with blossoms, but in the rich full foliage
of summer, which the setting sun is bathing in golden glory. Edith’s
blue eyes are gazing on the magnificent sky, where the bright orb of
day, while sinking down on a throne of fiery clouds, is throwing upwards
widening streams of light where rosy clouds, like islands of the blessed,
softly float in clear blue ether. Never, even in Italy, had Edith
witnessed a finer sunset; it seemed like a glimpse granted to mortals
below of the coming glories of heaven.
“How resplendent is the sky!” exclaimed Edith, after a pause of silent
admiration.
“And how beautiful the earth!” added Isa.
“Ah, on the eve of your bridal day, dearest, the prospect may well look
fair in your eyes, but still it owes its chief beauty to the radiance
above it.”
[Illustration: A FAIR PROSPECT.]
“I think that it must always be so to the Christian,” observed Isa. “The
very crown of earthly happiness is to think that it is not all earthly;
that our Lord, who has joined our hearts together, will also join our
hands; and that the union which He makes will endure when that sun itself
is dark!” Isa’s eyes glistened with tears as she spoke, but they welled
up from a deep fount of joy.
“Just look towards Wildwaste!” cried Edith; “they have finished that
triumphal arch of evergreens and roses at which Lottie and her brother,
and all the children of the hamlet, have been working so hard since
daybreak. I never thought that Wildwaste could put on an appearance so
bright and so gay. Every cottage has its garland, and I should not wonder
if the manufactory itself burst into an illumination to-morrow.”
“I suspect that the enthusiasm and the rejoicing,” said Isa gayly, “is
less on account of the wedding than to express the joy of the hamlet
at Arthur Madden’s being appointed to succeed Mr. Bull. Old Bolder was
speaking so warmly on the subject this morning. ‘There will be good days
for Wildwaste yet,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve a pastor who will work, and
pray while he works; who loves his people, and will make them love him!
We’ll not have all the drunkenness and riot which have made Wildwaste a
blot on the land! I’ve felt better ever since I heard the good news,’ he
added, rubbing his hands; ‘and I’ll make a shift, I will, to throw away
my crutches, and get to church the day that Mr. Arthur gives his first
sermon.’”
“Every one welcomes their young clergyman as the benefactor of the
place,” observed Edith.
“Lottie would be almost sorry to leave Wildwaste,” said Isa, “were she
not going with me to Axe, where she will be close to her widowed mother,
and able often to be with her.”
“The only person for whom I feel sorry in the midst of all this
rejoicing,” observed Edith, “is your poor brother, Mr. Gritton. He will
miss you so sadly, when all alone in that dreary house at Wildwaste.”
“I suspect that he will not be long alone,” said Isa.
“What!—is it true then?” asked Edith quickly, glancing up into the face
of her companion; “but surely, surely it must grieve you to think of
having Cora Madden as a sister!”
“Some months ago it would have grieved me inexpressibly,” replied Isa
gravely. “I should have deemed such a connection a heavy misfortune; but
Cora is changed, so much changed, since her illness.”
“I hear that the small-pox has left deep traces—”
“Yes, on her character,” interrupted Isa. “Cora is much softened, I hope
humbled; there is so much less of asperity in her manner, of sarcasm in
her tone. Is it not strange, Edith, that she of whom I once spoke so
harshly when you and I stood here conversing together, should seem now to
turn towards me with the affection of a sister?”
“You have indeed been a sister to her, dear Isa; often have I wondered
at your courage in braving infection, and your unselfishness in enduring
quarantine, and all for one whom you dis——whom you could not love. But
yours was the courage, the self-devotion of faith, and God guarded you
from the danger.”
“God has indeed crowned me with loving-kindness and tender mercies!”
exclaimed Isa, whose quick eye had caught sight at that moment of a
well-known form advancing up the avenue. All her cares and fears, all her
difficulties and trials, had now been exchanged for exceeding joy; every
cloud in her sky, like those round the sun, had become a golden mansion
of light.
Shall earth be called only “a vale of tears,” and all its hopes be
compared to a withering leaf? Is happiness below but a fading vision? Not
so; for even here the Almighty can throw sunshine around His children,
and sweeten their cup with drops from that fountain of bliss whose full
stream shall refresh their spirits above! But for whom is such happiness
prepared? Not for the fearful and unbelieving, not for the selfish and
self-willed, but for those who, like Gideon, have obeyed God’s word and
chosen His service, and rendered faithful obedience to Him whose mercy
hath redeemed them. The Christian must not look for the victory without
the struggle, nor hope for peace while the smallest sin retains dominion
within the soul; it is on the night of conflict that dawns the morn of
success; to God’s faithful warriors, _faint, yet pursuing_, was given the
triumph of faith over Midian!
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