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Page 7
"I have no father and mother!"
"Nor brothers and sisters? Pardon me, but I must ask."
"You need not ask, because I will tell you. There were many of us once,
but I am the last!"
I could not go on, yet it must be done.
"But you have friends, who will come to you?"
"Yes; I have a grandfather. He lives in Hampshire. He is very old, but
he will come to me, if he still lives. If not!"----
"He _will_ come," said I, "I will write to him directly."
"I will write myself!" exclaimed she, starting up. "He will not believe
the story unless I write myself. Who _would_ believe it?"
I assured her she should write the next day; but I positively forbad
such an exertion at present. She yielded; she was indeed in no condition
for writing. Her mind seemed in an unnatural state; and I was by no
means sure that she had given a correct account of herself. I wrote to
her grandfather, on the supposition that she had; and was quite
satisfied when, in the evening, she gave me, in few words, her family
history. She had been relieved, though exhausted, by tears; and her mind
was calm and rational. She was indeed the last of her family. Her mother
had died a few weeks before, after a lingering illness; and the sole
surviving brother and sister had been prevailed on to take this tour,
to recruit their strength and spirits, after their long watching and
anxiety. They were always, as I discovered, bound together by the
strongest affection; and now that they had been made by circumstances
all in all to each other, they were thus separated! Will not my readers
excuse my attempting to describe such grief as her's must have been?
Her grandfather arrived on the earliest possible day. He was old, and
had some infirmities; but his health was not, as he assured us, at all
injured by his hurried and painful journey. Nothing could be more tender
than his kindness to his charge; though he was, perhaps, too far
advanced in this life, and too near another, to feel the pressure of
this kind of sorrow, as a younger or weaker mind would have done.
I could not help indulging in much painful conjecture as to the fate of
this young creature, when she should lose her last remaining stay: a
period which could not be far distant. But on this point I obtained some
satisfaction before her departure.
A few days before she left me, a gentleman arrived at the inn, and came
immediately to my cottage. She introduced him to me as "a friend." No
one said what kind of a friend he was; but I could entertain no doubt
that he was one who would supply the place of her brother to her.
"Her mind will not be left without a keeper," thought I, as I saw them
direct their steps to the brother's grave. "Thank God, her grandfather
is not her only remaining stay!"
They quitted the place together; and many a sympathizing heart did they
leave behind them--by many an anxious wish and prayer were they
followed. The last promise required from me was, that I would see that
the grave of her brother was respected. What a pang did it cost her to
leave that grave?
I heard tidings of her three times afterwards. Her letters pleased me;
they testified a deep, but not a selfish or corroding grief--a power of
exertion, and a disposition to hope and be cheerful. The last letter I
received from her, arrived more than five years ago. She had taken the
name which I conjectured would in time be her's. She had lost her
grandfather; but the time was past when his departure could occasion
much grief. She was then going abroad with her husband, for an
indefinite period of time. If they were spared to return to their native
country, they proposed visiting my little dwelling once more, to gaze
with softened emotions on scenes sadly endeared to them, and to mingle
their tears once more over a brother's grave.
Perhaps that day may yet arrive.
_Literary Magnet_.
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