"'Tis silent all!--but on my ear
The well-remembered echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I should not hear,
A voice that now might well be still.
Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake,
To listen though the dream be flown."
"O, it is ever the wildest storms that lull to the sweetest calms!"
wrote Florence Howard, on a new-turned leaf of her well-treasured
journal. "My heart is singing grateful anthems to the all-wise Father,
who stretched forth his friendly arm to save me from the 'snare of the
spoiler.' As I sit here to-night, with a young May moon gleaming down
through the far depths of liquid ether, like a sweet, angel face of pity
and love, how dimly o'er my memory come the stormy scenes of sin and
passion which conspired to render terrible the winter that has passed
away! My soul, long torn and rent by grief and wild-contending emotions,
grows tranquil in the calm and quiet which have succeeded the furious
storm, and settles to peaceful rest.
"It is enough for me to know my father's wrongs are righted and I am
still his own, and only his. The clown, from whose polluting arms kind
Providence rescued me, has never shown his hateful form among us since
the day that witnessed the disclosure of his father's baseness. His vile
mother has also disappeared, in search of her son. Great Heaven! to
think I was so near becoming the wife of that woman's child of sin; and,
but for that strange, wild hermit, who lifted the black curls that
veiled the monster who sought our destruction, O, where had we all been
now? And was it not a striking instance of Jehovah's righteous
retributions, that the man who was once the betrothed of my aunt, should
be the instrument selected by Heaven to disclose the villany and
wickedness of the wretch who seduced her affections by artful
falsehoods, and made her his wife, but to steal her fortune and blast
her life? Poor, dear aunt Mary! I mourn not nor pine to find she is not
my mother, for surely the fragile Edith, so rudely shocked by the
disclosures of her father's crimes, would have drooped and died, had she
not found a mother's fond affection to comfort and sustain her in the
trial hour. It is a beautiful sight, this reünion of parent and child.
How trustingly they cling to each other, and how their wan aspects
brighten in the warmth of their mutual affection! But I think there's a
love in the mother's heart yet stronger than that she feels for her
child. I watch her emotional excitement when the name of the hermit is
mentioned, and I think that early devotion has survived all
disappointments and afflictions. What a romantic thing it would be for
them to meet in the evening of life and renew the promises of their
youth! But it may not be, for the conviction steals coldly o'er me that
my dear aunt has been too deeply tried to long survive her sorrows. Even
the joy of discovering a daughter may not save her from the tomb which
opens to receive her weary form in its oblivious arms. Father looks on
the thin, wasted form, following Edith closely as her shadow, with a
fond, earnest gaze fixed on the gentle girl, and turns to hide a tear.
O, would the blow might be a while averted! All is so bright and sunny
around us now. I even try to nurse the belief that I _could_ not be
happier, but my heart will rebel against the specious falsehood. Still,
still it wears the fetters love so enduringly fastened. Still I remember
that double dawn which rose on me as I stood on the cloud-veiled summit
of old, hoary-headed Mount Washington.
'And I saw it with such feeling, joy in blood and heart and brain,
I would give, to call the affluence of that moment back again,
Europe, with her cities, rivers, hills of prey, sheep-sprinkled downs,
Ay, an hundred sheaves of sceptres, ay, a planet's gathered crowns,'
"But I must not write thus, lest I grow ungrateful for the mercies of a
gracious Providence. Let me thank my God for his remembrance in the hour
of sorest need, and lie down to slumber."
She closed her book, and, dropping softly on her knees before the low
curtained couch, leaned her young head, with its dark, clustering curls,
against the white cushions, and remained several moments in silent
prayer. Then rising, she closed the casements and retired to rest.