II.

What is Left.

But much as there is gone of life, and of its joys, very much remains,—­very much in earnest, and very much more in hope.  Still you see visions, and you dream dreams, of the times that are to come.

Your home and heart are left; within that home, the old Bible holds its wonted place, which was the monitor of your boyhood; and now, more than ever, it prompts those reverent reaches of the spirit, which go beyond even the track of dreams.

That cherished Madge, the partner of your life and joy, still lingers, though her step is feeble, and her eyes are dimmed;—­not as once attracting you by any outward show of beauty; your heart, glowing through the memory of a life of joy, needs no such stimulant to the affections.  Your hearts are knit together by a habit of growth, and a unanimity of desire.  There is less to remind of the vanities of earth, and more to quicken the hopes of a time when body yields to spirit.

Your own poor, battered hulk wants no jaunty-trimmed craft for consort; but twin of heart and soul, as you are twin of years, you float tranquilly toward that haven which lies before us all.

Your children, now almost verging on maturity, bless your hearth and home.  Not one is gone.  Frank indeed—­that wild fellow of a youth, who has wrought your heart into perplexing anxieties again and again, as you have seen the wayward dashes of his young blood—­is often away.  But his heart yet centres where yours centres; and his absence is only a nearer and bolder strife with that fierce world whose circumstances every man of force and energy is born to conquer.

His return from time to time with that proud figure of opening manliness, and that full flush of health, speaks to your affections as you could never have believed it would.  It is not for a man, who is the father of a man, to show any weakness of the heart, or any over-sensitiveness, in those ties which bind him to his kin.  And yet—­yet, as you sit by your fireside, with your clear, gray eye feasting in its feebleness on that proud figure of a man who calls you “father,”—­and as you see his fond and loving attentions to that one who has been your partner in all anxieties and joys, there is a throbbing within your bosom that makes you almost wish him young again,—­that you might embrace him now, as when he warbled in your rejoicing ear those first words of love!—­Ah, how little does a son know the secret and craving tenderness of a parent,—­how little conception has he of those silent bursts of fondness and of joy which attend his coming, and which crown his parting!

There is young Madge too,—­dark-eyed, tall, with a pensive shadow resting on her face,—­the very image of refinement and of delicacy.  She is thoughtful;—­not breaking out, like the hoiden, flax-haired Nelly, into bursts of joy and singing,—­but stealing upon your heart with a gentle and quiet tenderness that diffuses itself throughout the household like a soft zephyr of summer.