They left the house, and I shut the door after them, and came back softly to my seat by the old man’s knee.

Once before I had seen him, when a heavy sorrow fell upon him.  It was on a beautiful summer’s day, and the open window let in the cool breeze from the sea.  He was sitting by it in his arm-chair, looking out upon the calm water, buried in thought.  His favorite daughter had long been very low, and might sink away at any moment.  The old dog was at his feet asleep.  The clock ticked in the corner, and the sun was shining upon the floor.  Some friends sat by in silence, with sorrowful countenances.  His little grandchild came to his side, and said, “Mother says, tell Grandpa Aunt Lucy’s gone home.”

The old man did not alter his position.  For some time he sat in deep thought, looking out with unseeing gaze, and winding his thumbs, as before.  Of five fair daughters, three had before died by the same disease, consumption.  He had seen them slowly fade away, one by one, and had followed his children to the grave in the secluded burying-ground, where the green sod was now to be broken to receive the fourth.

Rising slowly, he walked across the room, and, taking the well-worn family Bible, returned with it to his seat; and, as he turned the leaves, he said in a low tone to himself, “There’s only one left now!” Then he sat entirely silent, with his eyes fixed upon the sacred page.  He did not utter one word of lamentation, he did not shed a tear, but as he turned his eye on me, in passing, its expression went to my heart.  Stealing softly out, I left him to the silent Comforter whose blessing is on the mourner.

Now the scene was changed.  One was suddenly taken from his side who had been a companion from boyhood to old age.  They had played and worked in company; together they had embarked on their first voyage, and their last; and they had settled down in close neighborhood in the evening of their days.  Each had preserved the other’s life in some moment of peril, but took small praise to himself for so simple an act of duty.  Few words of fondness had ever passed between them.  They had gone along the path of life, without perhaps being conscious of any peculiarly strong tie of friendship binding them together, till they were thus torn asunder.  The death of a daughter, long and slowly wasting away before his eyes, could be calmly borne.  But this blow was wholly unforeseen, and his chest heavily rose and fell, and by the bright firelight I saw tears rolling over his weather-beaten cheeks.

  “A child will weep a bramble’s smart,
   A maid to see her sparrow part,
   A stripling for a woman’s heart;
   Talk not of grief, till thou hast seen
   The hard-drawn tears of bearded men.”