“An agony of tears was all her soul could offer.”

Midnight came; the moon had climbed high in the heavens.  The family had retired for the night, and deep silence reigned through the house, when Juliet rose from her knees, and approaching the open casement, looked long and sadly into the serene, tranquil depths of the cloudless night.

Who ever gazed upon the face of the divine mother in vain?  The spirit of peace brooded over the slumbering world—­that holy calm which no passion of man can disturb—­which falls with the same profound stillness round the turmoil of the battle-field, and the bed of death—­which enfolds in its silent embrace the eternity of the past—­the wide ocean of the present.  How many streaming eyes had been raised to that cloudless moon!—­how many hands had been lifted up in heart-felt prayer to those solemn star-gemmed heavens!  What tales of bitter grief had been poured out to the majesty of night!  The eyes were quenched in the darkness of the grave; the hands were dust; and the impassioned hearts that once breathed those plaintive notes of woe, where, oh where were they?  The spirit that listened to the sorrows of their day had no revelation to make of their fate!

“And I, what am I, that I should repine and murmur against the decrees of Providence?” sighed Juliet.  “The sorrows that I now endure have been felt by thousands who now feel no more.  God, give me patience under every trial.  In humble faith teach me resignation to Thy divine will.”

With a sorrowful tranquillity of mind she turned from the window, struck a light, and prepared to undress, when her attention was arrested by a letter lying upon her dressing table.  She instantly recognised the hand, and hastily breaking the seal, read with no small emotion the following lines

    Say, dost thou think that I could be
    False to myself and false to thee? 
    This broken heart and fever’d brain
    May never wake to joy again. 
    Yet conscious innocence has given
    A hope that triumphs o’er despair;
    I trust my righteous cause to heaven,
    And brace my tortured soul to bear
    The worst that can on earth befall,
    In losing thee—­my life, my all!

    The dove of promise to my ark,
    The pole-star to my wandering bark,
    The beautiful by love enshrined,
      And worshipp’d with such fond excess;
    Whose being with my being twined
      In one bright dream of happiness,
    Not death itself can rend apart
    The link that binds thee to my heart.

    Spurn not the crush’d and wither’d flower;
    There yet shall dawn a brighter hour,
    When ev’ry tear you shed o’er this
    Shall be repaid with tenfold bliss;
    And hope’s bright arch shall span the cloud
    That wraps us in its envious shroud. 
    Then banish from thy breast for ever
      The cold, ungenerous thought of ill,
    Falsehood awhile our hearts may sever,
      But injured worth must triumph still.