She was very pretty, I have
heard--young, and timid; but being of such fearfully low origin, of
course she could not be recognised by my husband or myself! We forbade
my son all intercourse with us, unless he would separate himself from
her; but the poor boy was perfectly mad, and he preferred this
low-born wife to his father and mother. They had a little baby, who
was sent over to me when the wife died--for, thank God! she did die in
a few years' time. My son was restored to our love, and he received
our forgiveness; but we never saw him again. He took a fever of the
country, and was a corpse in a few hours. My second boy was in the
navy--a fine high-spirited fellow, who seemed to set all the accidents
of life at defiance. I could not believe in any harm coming to _him_.
He was so strong, so healthy, so beautiful, so bright: he might have
been immortal, for all the elements of decay that shewed themselves in
him. Yet this glorious young hero was drowned--wrecked off a
coral-reef, and flung like a weed on the waters. He lost his own life
in trying to save that of a common sailor--a piece of pure gold
bartered for the foulest clay! Two years after this, my husband died
of typhus fever, and I had a nervous attack, from which I have never
recovered. And now, what do you say to this history of mine? For
fifteen years, I have never been free from sorrow. No sooner did one
grow so familiar to me, that I ceased to tremble at its hideousness,
than another, still more terrible, came to overwhelm me in fresh
misery.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30