neighbour, whilst her husband raised the almost insensible girl from
her kneeling posture by the bed-side, and placed her on a chair. The
little Sally imagining, from the stillness that prevailed, that her
mother had fallen asleep, had kept at a distance from the bed-side,
lest she should by any means disturb her; but now beginning to wonder
why her sister should thus be the chief object of anxiety, she had
crept softly forward to investigate the cause, and set her eyes, for
the first time in her life, on the features of death. The sudden cry
which she gave, was the first sound that reached the heart of the
grief-stricken Jenny; and as the weeping child ran toward her, she
opened her arms, and clasping her to her bosom, wept over her in
all the luxury of sorrow. Her compassionate neighbours knew enough
of the human heart, to judge it best to leave her to herself; and,
therefore, summoning some other of their friends to their assistance,
they busied themselves about the various offices for the dead, and
left poor Jenny to the undisturbed indulgence of her wo. But Jenny's
grief was too intense to allow her long the relief of tears, and she
sat, almost motionless, clasping the little Sally in her arms, who
had soon wept herself to sleep, and waited till she was permitted
again to throw herself by the side of her lifeless parent, and watch
over the remains of what she had so fondly loved. This indulgence was
all that she desired, and all of which she was capable of partaking;
and she sat watching the body almost without either speaking, or
moving, till the moment arrived when it was to be deposited in its
last silent mansion. Then it was, that the poor girl felt that she
had indeed lost her beloved parent for ever. Whilst the lineaments
still remained before her view, on which she had so long delighted
to gaze, even though they were cold and motionless, she felt as
though she had still something to rest upon; but when these too were
taken away, when the very shell which the soul of affection had
once inhabited, was removed from a world in which she herself was
still to remain, she, for the first time, became sensible of that
total destitution of soul that is felt after the loss of those we
love. Happily, however, for poor Jenny, she was forbidden, by the
calls of imperative necessity, to indulge in unavailing sorrow; and
the exertions that her forlorn situation demanded, proved the most
effectual balm to her wounded bosom; and gradually, a meek submission
to the will of Him to whom she had been taught from her earliest
infancy to bow in humble confidence, superseded that bitter anguish
which had at first swelled her heart almost to bursting.
The parent, whom Jenny so deeply mourned, had been left a widow some
months before the little Sally was born. She had two children then
living; Jenny, who was at that time about nine years old, and a boy,
five years her senior. The mother had, before her marriage, been an
upper servant in a genteel and respectable family, and had acquired,
in consequence, a degree of cultivation superior to the situation in
which her marriage afterwards placed her. The chief ambition of her
heart was to keep her children under her own eye, and to train their
infant minds to religion and virtue. But William, her boy, who was
fourteen at the time of his father's death, soon began to be anxious
to do something for himself; and, as the surest and shortest means
of attaining that desirable end, he had fixed his mind upon the sea.
In vain did his mother remind him that the salt wave had been the
grave of his father, or endeavour to impress upon his mind the many
anxious days and sleepless nights he would thus impose upon her; he
saw no other means half so likely to enable him, in the course of a
few years, to provide for her and his sisters, and to relieve her
delicate frame from the hardship, which it was so ill calculated
to bear, of labouring for their subsistence. "Besides, mother,"
remonstrated he, "I have no other chance of seeing the world, but by
being a sailor, and I could never be happy without seeing some of
the strange countries that my father used to tell me about. And you
know, too," continued the generous boy, looking as he spoke, at his
elder sister, to whom he was exceedingly attached, "by the time that
I am out of my apprenticeship, Jenny will be almost grown up, and
with the wages I can then earn, and your good management, we shall be
able to give her some good schooling, and keep her at home with you;
for she is too pretty and too delicate to go to service." Jenny was
indeed beautiful, even at that early age, and every year, as it added
to her height, increased also the grace and loveliness of her form.
Her features were regular, her complexion not only fair but almost
transparent, while her bright auburn locks hung in luxuriance about
her face and shoulders. But it was not in the symmetry of feature
or the grace of form, that Jenny's beauty was centered. It was the
inward harmony which presided over all, and gave to her full blue
eyes an expression of the most touching sensibility, that made her
an object so delightful to look upon: and her mother felt, as she
gazed upon her, that she must perform her own duties ill indeed,
if, even without any higher advantages of education than she could
herself give her, the lovely bud, as it expanded into maturity, did
not become a flower worthy of being transplanted into the most highly
cultivated garden.
William went to sea, and his mother had all the satisfaction that a
mother's heart can enjoy, of hearing his master express, at every
return of the vessel, the highest approbation of his conduct. Thus
supported and comforted by her children, she laboured incessantly but
cheerfully for her own and their support, at first as a seamstress;
but this sedentary occupation being unfavourable to her constitution,
she afterward rented a small cottage to which was attached a garden
of considerable extent, which Jenny and she managed to cultivate
themselves, with the aid of very little hired assistance; and,
from the sale of the produce, she contrived to make a scanty but
respectable livelihood. Time thus rolled on, Jenny had completed her
thirteenth year, and her William was within a few weeks of being out
of his time. But alas! William was away, and many weeks, nay months,
had passed over without his having been heard of. Again and again,
had she gone to the owners to inquire after him, but in vain; no
tidings had been received of the vessel since she had left the port
at which she had taken in her lading, and had sailed homeward bound;
and though the usual length of the passage was that of two or three
weeks at furthest, above thrice that number had elapsed without any
tidings of her having been received.
The poor widow had, on the evening previous to her death, again been
at the owner's on the mournful errand of inquiring after her lost
boy, and had again returned disappointed and dejected. She had, on
her way thither, been overtaken by a heavy shower of rain, which had
wet her clothes quite through. She had paid no attention, however,
to the circumstance; for her mind was engrossed with the thought of
her child, and though Jenny, on her return home, used every means
in her power to prevent her taking harm from it, a cough, to which
she had always been subject, and which at that time was worse than
usual, soon showed how much injury she had received. In a violent
paroxysm of coughing, she had ruptured the blood-vessel that put
so sudden a period to her existence, and left poor Jenny alone and
destitute in the world,--alone except the little helpless being,
whose dependence upon her seemed only to make her situation still
more deplorable. Jenny's mind, however, was one of those which,
though tuned to every gentle feeling, yet possessed a native strength
which rose in proportion to the pressure of misfortune; so that, as
she looked upon little Sally, and considered that she was now, in
all probability, her only earthly protector, she felt a tenderness
almost parental rise within her, and she determined to resist every
inclination to selfish indulgence of her feelings, and exert every
energy for the support of her little orphan sister,--the posthumous
heir of poverty and sorrow. But let not those who are surrounded
by plenty, even though mourning the loss of some beloved relative,
imagine that they know the difficulties of the task that poor Jenny
had to perform; nor yet those who though pressed by the hard gripe
of poverty, have yet some remaining friends from whom they have a
right to claim the tender balm of sympathy; for of these comforts
poor Jenny was equally destitute, and she found herself standing
alone in the wide world, poor, friendless, and forlorn; deprived of
"every stay save innocence and Heaven." It is true, some faint hope
still played about her heart, that her beloved brother--her kind, her
affectionate William, might yet be restored to her; but every day,
as it passed over her head, made that hope more faint, till, like
the hues of its own bow, which gradually fade into ether, it died
away by degrees in her bosom; and at length scarce a tint remained
to give its colouring to the mental horizon. Still, however, she
bore up and struggled against the despondency that threatened to lay
hold of her mind; and even though grim want seemed ready to stare
her in the face, her steadfast spirit, relying upon the goodness of
that superintending Power, that is ever ready to be a father to the
fatherless, looked up to heaven with a confident hope that she would
not be forgotten. "Will He," she would say, as she watched the fruit
ripen, or the seed germinate, "will He who takes care of all these
things and gives them the nourishment which they require, turn a deaf
ear to the cry of his orphan children? It cannot be! That little
bird," she continued, "is pouring forth its soul in thankfulness and
joy, though it has no stores laid up for to-morrow, and I too will
trust to the same protecting Power." But from what source to-morrow's
fare was to be derived, poor Jenny could form but little idea. Autumn
was now far advanced, and the produce of their garden had become
very scanty, whilst the expenses attendant on her mother's funeral
had entirely exhausted their small store of money; so that when the
little Sally complained of hunger, and begged that she would give her
something to eat, she put the last morsel of bread into her hands,
totally at a loss to conjecture whence the money was to be derived
that was to purchase more. "Why will you not eat any yourself,
Jenny?" said the child, as she eagerly devoured the dry morsel. "I
am sure you must be hungry, for I have not seen you eat any thing
to-day." "I do not want to eat," replied Jenny, forcing herself to
speak in a cheerful tone, though she felt at the same moment that
the coarsest food would be to her a most delicious repast. "Is it
because there is no more in the house?" asked Sally, whose mind,
for the first time, received the idea of their scanty provision.
Jenny was silent. "There is more bread here than I want," said the
child, breaking, as she spoke, the piece of bread that she had before
declared was not half so much as she could eat. "Take this piece,
Jenny, I don't want it, and I am sure you will like it after you have
tasted it."
Jenny had watched, with a dry eye, her little sister devouring their
last morsel of food, whilst she herself was suffering under the most
importunate demands of hunger; but this tender sympathy in the child,
and her willingness to give up a part of what she so much needed
herself, brought a flood of tears to her eyes. "He, who feeds the
young ravens when they cry cannot let such sweetness and innocence
suffer for want of food," said she inwardly, as clasping the child in
her arms, she bathed her cheeks with her tears. "Don't cry, Jenny,"
said the affectionate little girl, as she wiped the tears from her
sister's eyes with her little apron. "Don't cry. Indeed I don't want
any more just now, and I dare say you will get another loaf before I
am hungry again. And who-knows but William may come back, and then we
shall have every thing that we want? You have not been at the owner's
lately, Jenny, to ask about the ship," continued the child, anxious
to divert her sister's mind from the sad subject of her reflections.
"Why don't you go, Jenny?"
"I am afraid there is little use in it," answered her sister in a
tone of despondency.
"But try, Jenny, just try once more, and perhaps good news may come
when you are not expecting it."
"Well, we will go now," returned Jenny; "and," added she, "there are
a few plums on the old tree that we will take with us, though they
are not half ripe yet; and perhaps we may get somebody to give us as
much for them as will get bread enough to keep us from starving at
least one day longer." A little basket was soon filled with the plums,
and they set out, once more cheered by that hope which seldom totally
forsakes the bosom of youth and innocence: but, on arriving at the
owner's, Jenny was surprised to find all in a state of confusion. The
servant that came to the door was evidently much agitated, and on
Jenny's making her accustomed inquiry if any thing had yet been heard
of the ship, she was told by the girl that a letter had, a very short
time before, been received by her mistress, informing her that some
wrecks of the vessel had been cast ashore, and some of the sailors'
chests, among which was one bearing the name of William Anderson; and
that there was every reason to believe that all the crew were lost.
Here then was a fatal blow to all the fond hopes that Jenny had so
anxiously cherished; and her affectionate brother, on whom she had
relied for support and consolation in the hour of affliction, had
himself found a premature and watery grave. The servant's sympathy
was too powerfully excited for the distress of her mistress, whose
husband had filled the double station of master and owner, to leave
much to bestow upon poor Jenny; so that, after giving her all the
information in her power, she turned from the door, leaving the two
orphan sisters to themselves to mourn over their share of this heavy
calamity. Jenny turned her steps homeward, with a heart bowed down
with affliction, and was only made conscious of where she was and
whither she was going, by the questions that Sally occasionally put
to her. "Look at that black cloud, Jenny," said the child, "I never
saw such a cloud before. Do you think we can get home before the rain
comes on?" Jenny looked up and saw that the sky had indeed a most
portentous aspect; but the gloom that surrounded her only seemed to
be in unison with the state of her mind, and she almost felt rejoiced
that nature did not wear the appearance of gladness, whilst she felt
that all was darkness within. "Isn't that thunder?" asked Sally, as
a deep and distant murmur rolled round the horizon. "And there is
lightning, and there is another flash," continued the child; "Oh! I
wish we were at home." Jenny saw the lightning and heard the thunder,
but she heard and saw almost without being conscious that she did
either; for her mind was absorbed in the idea of her beloved brother
having been exposed to a storm, such as that which was approaching,
accompanied with the additional horrors of a tempestuous ocean. A
violent gust of wind now swept past them, and the thunder which, only
a moment before, had rolled at a distance, burst over their heads
with a noise which seemed to shake the very ground on which they
stood; whilst the clouds brooded around in almost midnight darkness,
or only parted to emit flashes of lightning, that, for the instant,
illumined every object.
"Oh! Jenny, what must we do?" cried the little Sally, shrinking
with fear, and putting her hands to her ears to shut out the noise
of the thunder. Jenny put her arm round the neck of the child, and
pressed her tenderly toward her, as, looking up at the forked shafts
which flew across the skies, she inwardly breathed the prayer that
he who rolls the thunderbolt and sends the lightning forth, if it
was his pleasure that they should either of them fall beneath the
stroke, would in his mercy let them sink together; and not leave one
remaining, the helpless or wretched survivor of the other.
Jenny perhaps never looked more beautiful or interesting than she
did at that moment, as she stood turning her back to a storm which
she no longer felt the power to resist, her arm passed with an
almost maternal tenderness round the neck of her orphan sister,
who seemed to rest against her as if assured that she was under
the care of a protecting angel; and her fine eyes raised to heaven
with a mingled expression of steadfast faith and humble submission.
"My mother! my dear William!" she faintly uttered, "perhaps these
shafts of lightning are sent as the messengers of our re-union." As
she said this, a voice seemed to be borne along on the wind, and
she almost fancied that she heard her own name pronounced. "It is a
wild thought," she continued internally, "but I could almost imagine
that William's voice is in the wind, and that he is calling me to
join him and our blessed mother in the regions above." Again the
voice sounded in her ear, and again, and again--it grew louder and
more distinct--what could it mean? Was she already in the region
of spirits? or were those angelic beings really permitted, as has
sometimes been imagined, to revisit this world and hover over those
whom they had loved on earth? As she asked herself the question, she
turned round, but what words can express her feelings when, on doing
so, she beheld, hastening toward her with all the speed that the
violence of the storm would permit, the beloved brother whom she had
believed to be the inmate of a watery grave! Her mind had been strung
to too high a degree of agony, and she was too much exhausted from
the want of food, to bear this sudden revulsion of feeling without
sinking under it. She uttered a scream, and made an attempt to rush
forward, but her limbs became powerless, a film came over her eyes,
and she would have sunk on the ground, had not William reached her
in time to receive her in his arms. So deep was the swoon into which
she had fallen, that there was time for her to be conveyed to a house
that was at no very great distance, before her consciousness again
returned to her. When it did, she started up, and looked eagerly
around, as if to assure herself that the object she had seen had not
been a mere vision of the imagination; but she was soon convinced
of the happy reality, for her eye immediately rested on her beloved
William as he stood trying to still the cries of the little Sally,
who could not be convinced that the insensible state in which Jenny
lay was not equally hopeless as that which she had first witnessed at
the time of her mother's death.
A copious flood of tears now came to Jenny's relief, which she was
permitted to indulge for a considerable time without interruption,
and then her brother led her gradually on to speak of their mother,
and describe the particulars of a death of which little Sally had
already informed him; after which, he proceeded to satisfy her
curiosity respecting himself. It appeared that a long continuation
of high and contrary winds had kept the vessel buffeting about
the ocean for many weeks, till at length a storm, too powerful to
be resisted, had driven her on the coast, where she soon became a
total wreck. Happily for William, however, he had been so fortunate
as not only to save his own life, but that of his captain also,
who had become so completely benumbed with cold and long exposure
to the storm, as to be totally incapable of assisting himself, and
must have been an unresisting prey to the angry waves, had not the
generous youth determined to try to save him, even at the most
imminent hazard of his own life. After many difficulties and dangers,
he succeeded in gaining a footing on shore for both his captain and
himself, but it was a considerable time before the former was able
to proceed homeward; but when he was, they hastened on in the hope
of preceding the news of their misfortunes. The letter, however,
giving an account of the portions of the wreck which had been washed
on shore, on a part of the coast at some distance from that on which
they had landed, had arrived a short time before them; indeed, they
had reached the captain's house only a very few minutes after Jenny
and her little sister had left it, and William had lost no time in
hastening after them. "We have weathered a heavy gale," said he,
after he had given his sisters this account, "but it is all over
now; and what is better, our captain declares he will never go to
sea again, but will give me the command of the new vessel which he
is going to have built. He says that I saved his life, and he is
determined to prove a father to me in return."
"Oh! my mother," cried Jenny, clasping her hands and raising her eyes
in thankfulness to Heaven, "why are you not here to enjoy this happy
moment!"
"And why should you not, my dear girl," said the lady into whose
house Jenny had been carried, and who had listened with great
interest to the conversation between the brother and sister; "why
should you not believe not only that she sympathizes in your
happiness, but that her views of the great scheme of Providence are
now so enlarged, as to render her capable of perceiving that, what
we here call evils, are as mere motes in the balance, when put in
competition with the great sum of happiness which awaits the virtuous
hereafter? Upon the benevolent plan on which all creation is formed,
the petty distinctions of rich and poor, high and low, on which we
are apt to place so much importance, will soon be lost in the grand
and comprehensive distinctions of virtue and vice; to which standard
alone, all will be brought, and which may at once place the humblest
peasant above the proudest monarch."
"Yes! yes! Jenny," said the young sailor, "we know that whatever
storms may beset us, we still have a never-failing Friend, always at
hand, who will steer us to a safe harbour at last. So come, my sweet
lilly and my pretty rose-bud," added he, taking a hand of each of his
sisters, "cheer up, my girls! for, though the winds still blow and
the skies frown, by the blasts of poverty, at least, you shall never
more be assailed, as long as your brother's arm has power to protect
you."
THE MYSTERIOUS PICTURE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
The following extraordinary story is declared by the authoress,
Mademoiselle Vanhove, to be strictly true in its leading
incidents.
Madame Dorival was the widow of a distinguished French officer,
who had died in the service of his country. Finding it difficult,
without the closest economy, to support her family genteelly on the
pension allowed her by government, and being anxious to secure an
independence for her children in case of her death, she was induced
to open a boarding-school in the vicinity of Paris. The assistance of
her two highly accomplished daughters, Lucilla and Julia, made the
employment of female teachers unnecessary; but she engaged the best
masters for music, dancing, drawing and painting, and the fashionable
foreign languages. Her establishment was conducted on a most liberal
scale, and each of the twenty young ladies who became her pupils had
a separate apartment.
Among these young ladies, was Josephine Vericour, who took lessons
in miniature painting, with the view of exercising that branch of
the art as a profession; the circumstances of her family being such
that it was necessary to educate her, in the prospect of turning her
talents to a profitable account.
Her imagination being deeply impressed with this object, she thought
of it nearly all day, and dreamed of it at night. That she had much
natural talent for drawing, was unquestionable; but she was only
fifteen, she was not a prodigy, and in every thing she had as yet
produced was to be found a due portion of errors and defects. With an
ardent ambition to excel, Josephine was the victim of a painful and
unconquerable timidity, and an entire want of confidence in herself.
She had attempted likenesses of all her school-mates, one after
another, and was disheartened and discouraged because none of them
were perfect, and was overwhelmed with mortification when she heard
them criticised. The remarks of the gentleman who instructed her,
though very judicious, were often so severe, that she was frequently
almost tempted to throw away her pencil in despair, and she never
painted worse than when under the eye of her master.
One morning in the garden, she was struck with the graceful and
picturesque attitude in which two of her companions had unconsciously
thrown themselves, one of them, having put her arm round the waist of
the other, was pointing out to her notice a beautiful butterfly that
had just settled on a rose. Josephine begged of the girls to remain
in that position while she sketched them on the blank leaf of a
book. Afterwards she made a separate drawing of each of their faces,
and then transferred the whole to a large sheet of ivory, intending
to make a picture of it in the miniature style. But she determined
to work at it in her own chamber, at leisure hours, and not to allow
it to be seen till it was entirely finished. In six weeks there was
to be a private examination, at which premiums were to be awarded
to those who excelled in the different branches taught at Madame
Dorival's school. Seven of the young ladies were taking lessons
in miniature-painting, all of whom, in the eyes of the diffident
Josephine, possessed far more talent than herself. Still, she knew
that industry, application, and an ardent desire to succeed, had
often effected wonders; and she was extremely anxious to gratify her
parents by obtaining the prize, if possible.