the mother lay alone in her chamber counting the fatal hours as they tolled one after another, amidst her tears, her watching, her fond prayers.  What a night that was, and yet how quickly the melancholy dawn came!  Only too soon the sun rose over the houses.  And now in a moment more the city seemed to wake.  The house began to stir.  The family gathers together for the last meal.  For the last time in the midst of them the widow kneels amongst her kneeling children, and falters a prayer in which she commits her dearest, her eldest born, to the care of the Father of all.  O night, what tears you hide—­what prayers you hear!  And so the nights pass and the days succeed, until that one comes when tears and parting shall be no more.

In your diary, as in mine, there are days marked with sadness, not for this year only, but for all.  On a certain day—­and the sun perhaps, shining ever so brightly—­the housemother comes down to her family with a sad face, which scares the children round about in the midst of their laughter and prattle.  They may have forgotten—­but she has not—­a day which came, twenty years ago it may be, and which she remembers only too well:  the long night-watch; the dreadful dawning and the rain beating at the pane; the infant speechless, but moaning in its little crib; and then the awful calm, the awful smile on the sweet cherub face, when the cries have ceased, and the little suffering breast heaves no more.  Then the children, as they see their mother’s face, remember this was the day on which their little brother died.  It was before they were born; but she remembers it.  And as they pray together, it seems almost as if the spirit of the little lost one was hovering round the group.  So they pass away:  friends, kindred, the dearest-loved, grown people, aged, infants.  As we go on the down-hill journey, the mile-stones are grave-stones, and on each more and more names are written; unless haply you live beyond man’s common age, when friends have dropped off, and, tottering, and feeble, and unpitied, you reach the terminus alone.

In this past year’s diary is there any precious day noted on which you have made a new friend?  This is a piece of good fortune bestowed but grudgingly on the old.  After a certain age a new friend is a wonder, like Sarah’s child.  Aged persons are seldom capable of bearing friendships.  Do you remember how warmly you loved Jack and Tom when you were at school; what a passionate regard you had for Ned when you were at college, and the immense letters you wrote to each other?  How often do you write, now that postage costs nothing?  There is the age of blossoms and sweet budding green:  the age of generous summer; the autumn when the leaves drop; and then winter, shivering and bare.  Quick, children, and sit at my feet:  for they are cold, very cold:  and it seems as if neither wine nor worsted will warm ’em.