A friend says: "Our pleasant interview, after a lapse of years, and those years marked by many vicissitudes, has caused the tide of feelings to ebb and flow till the current of my thoughts is swollen into such a stream of intensity as to lead me, through this channel of communication, to assure you of my warmest sympathy and my deep interest in the important work in which you have been so long engaged. It was gratifying to learn from your lips that amid the varied trials which have been scattered in your pathway God has been your refuge and strength—a very present help in trouble, and cheering to hear your widowed heart sing of mercy and exult in the happiness of that precious group who have gone before you into the eternal world." * * *
"My dear friend, may the sentiments and doctrines inculcated in your work drop as the rain, and distill as the dew, fertilizing and enlivening the sluggish soul, and encouraging the weary and heavy-laden. I know you need encouragement in your labor of love, and as I expect soon to visit M–, when I shall greet that precious Maternal Association to which I belonged for so many years, and which has so often been addressed by you, through the pages of your Magazine, as well as personally, I shall hope to do something in increasing the circulation of the work there. * *
We have many other letters from which we might make similar extracts, but our purpose in making the above was to give us an opportunity to say to our friends, that our bark is again ready for sea, with the flattering prospect of making a pleasant voyage, and that our sails are trimmed and need but the favoring breeze to speed it on its way.
COUSIN MARY ROSE; OR, A CHILD'S FIRST VISIT
How capricious is memory, often retaining through life trivial and transient incidents, in all the freshness of minute details, while of far more important events, where laborious effort has been expended to leave a fair and lasting record, but faint and illegible traces frequently remain!
Far back in my childhood, so far that I am at a loss where to place it, is a little episode, standing so far apart from the main purport of its history, that I do not know how it happened, or whether the original impression was deepened by its subsequent recurrence. This was a visit to the village of W–, the home of my Cousin Mary Rose.
I remember distinctly the ride; short it must have been, since it was but four or five miles from home, but it seemed long to me then. There was great elation of spirits on my part, and no particular excitement; but a very sedate pace on the part of our old horse, to whose swinging gait a monotonous creaking of the old-fashioned chaise kept up a steady response, not unharmonious, as it was connected in my mind with the idea of progress. I remember the wonders of the way, particularly my awe of a place called Folly Bridge, where a wide chasm, filled with many scattered rocks, and the noisy gurgle of shallow water, had resulted from an attempt to improve upon the original ford. Green fields, and houses with neat door-yards, thickened at last into a pretty village, with a church and school-house, stores and workshops. Then, turning from the main street, near the church, we took a quiet lane, which soon brought us to a pause, where our wheels indented the turf of a green slope, before the gate of a long, low dwelling, half buried in ancient lilac trees. This was the home of Aunt Rose, who, though no veritable aunt of mine, was one of those choice spirits, "to all the world akin," around whose memory lingers the fragrance of deeds of kindness. Here, by special invitation, I had come on a visit—my first visit from home. I had passed through no small excitement in the prospect of that event. I had anxiously watched every little preparation made for it, and my own small packing had seemed momentous. I felt to the full the dignity of the occasion. The father and mother, the brothers and sisters, the inseparable and often tedious nursery-maid, Harriet, were all left behind.
I stood for the first time on my individual responsibility among persons of whom I had known but little. The monotony of home-life was broken in upon, and my eyes and ears were both open to receive new impressions. Doubtless, the careful mother, who permitted me to be placed in this new situation, was well satisfied that I should be subjected only to good influences, but had they been evil, I should certainly have been lastingly affected by them, since every thing connected with the house and its inmates, the garden, the fields, the walks in the village, lives still a picture of vivid hues.
What induced the family to desire my company, I do not know; I have an idea that I was invited because, like many other good people, they liked the company of children, and in the hope that I might contribute to the element of home-cheerfulness, with which they liked to surround their only daughter, my Cousin Mary Rose, whose tall shadowy figure occupies in my recollections, as it did in reality, the very center of this household group. That she was an invalid, I gather from many remembered trifles, such as the constant consideration shown for her strength in walks and rides, the hooks in the ceiling from which her swing-chair had formerly hung (at which I used to gaze, thinking it such a pity that it had ever been removed); her quiet pursuits, and her gentle, and rather languid manner. She must have been simple and natural, as well as refined in her tastes, and of a delicate neatness and purity in her dress. If she was a rose, as her name would indicate, it must have been a white rose; but I think she was more like a spotted lily. There was her father, of whom I remember little, except that he slept in his large arm-chair at noontide, when I was fain to be quiet, and that he looked kindly and chatted pleasantly with me, as I sat on his knee at twilight. I found my place at once in the household. If I had any first feelings of strangeness to be overcome, which is probable, as I was but a timid child, or if I wept any tears under deserved reproof, or was in any trouble from childish indiscretions, the traces of these things have all vanished; nothing remains but the record of long summer-days of delight. Up and down, in and out, I wandered, at will, within certain limits.
An old cider mill (for such things were in New England) in the orchard was the remotest verge in one direction; to sit near it, and watch the horse go slowly round and round, and chat with Chauncey, the youngest son of the house, who was superintending it, was a great pleasure; but most of my out-of-doors enjoyments were solitary. I think this must have given a zest to them, for at home I was seldom alone. I was one of a little troop of brothers' and sisters, whose pleasures were all plays, gregarious and noisy. It was a new thing to be so quiet, and to give my still fancies such a range. I was never weary of watching the long processions of snow-white geese, moving along the turfy sides of the road, solemn and stately, each garnished with that awkward appendage the "poke," which seemed to me very cruel, since, in my simplicity, I believed that the perpendicular rod in the center passed, like a spit, directly through the bird's neck. Then, how inexhaustible were the resources of the flower garden, on the southern side of the house, into which a door opened from the parlor, the broad semicircular stone doorsteps affording me a favorite seat.
What a variety of treasures were spread out before me: larkspurs, from whose pointed nectaries I might weave "circles without end," varying the pattern of each by alternate proportions of blue, and pink, and white. There were foxgloves to be examined, whose depths were so mysteriously freckled; there were clusters of cowslips, and moss-pinks to be counted. There were tufts of ribbon-grass to be searched as diligently as ever merchandise in later days, for perfect matches; there were morning-glories, and moon-sleeps, and four o'clocks, and evening primroses to be watched lest they might fail to be true to their respective hours in opening and shutting. There were poppies, from whose "diminished heads" the loose leaves were to be gathered in a basket, (for they might stain the apron,) and lightly spread in the garret for drying. There were ripe poppy-seeds to be shaken out through the curious lid of their seed-vessel, in which a child's fancy found a curious resemblance to a pepper-box; I often forced it to serve as one in the imaginary feasts spread out on the door-step, though there were no guests to be invited, except plenty of wandering butterflies, or an occasional humming-bird, whizzing about the crimson blossoms