The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 15

All this was said and done with a grace and earnestness that thrilled the listeners; word and action suited to each with so inimitable a harmony that the spell was not broken till the voice ceased and the door closed.

That mournful bliss for which I had so pined was vouchsafed: I was alone with her to whom, indeed, honor and reason forbade me to say more than the last farewell.

It was some time before we recovered, before we felt that we were alone.

O ye moments that I can now recall with so little sadness in the mellow and sweet remembrance, rest ever holy and undisclosed in the solemn recesses of the heart! Yes, whatever confession of weakness was interchanged, we were not unworthy of the trust that permitted the mournful consolation of the parting. No trite love-tale, with vows not to be fulfilled, and hopes that the future must belie, mocked the realities of the life that lay before us. Yet on the confines of the dream we saw the day rising cold upon the world; and if—children as we well-nigh were—we shrank somewhat from the light, we did not blaspheme the sun and cry, "There is darkness in the dawn!"

All that we attempted was to comfort and strengthen each other for that which must be; not seeking to conceal the grief we felt, but promising, with simple faith, to struggle against the grief. If vow were pledged between us,—that was the vow: each for the other's sake would strive to enjoy the blessings Heaven left us still. Well may I say that we were children! I know not, in the broken words that passed between us, in the sorrowful hearts which those words revealed, I know not if there were that which they who own in human passion but the storm and the whirlwind would call the love of maturer years,—the love that gives fire to the song, and tragedy to the stage; but I know that there was neither a word nor a thought which made the sorrow of the children a rebellion to the Heavenly Father.

And again the door unclosed, and Fanny walked with a firm step to her mother's side, and pausing there, extended her hand to me and said, as I bent over it, "Heaven Will be with you!"

A word from Lady Ellinor, a frank smile from him, the rival, one last, last glance from the soft eyes of Fanny, and then Solitude rushed upon me,—rushed as something visible, palpable, overpowering. I felt it in the glare of the sunbeam, I heard it in the breath of the air; like a ghost it rose there,—where she had filled the space with her presence but a moment before! A something seemed gone from the universe forever; a change like that of death passed through my being; and when I woke, to feel that my being lived again, I knew that it was my youth and its poet-land that were no more, and that I had passed, with an unconscious step, which never could retrace its way, into the hard world of laborious man!