"Mary! wench,
couldst thou copy me them lines, dost think?--that's to say, if Job
there has no objection."
"Not I. More they're heard and read and the better, say I."
So Mary took the paper. And the next day, on a blank half-sheet of
a valentine, all bordered with hearts and darts--a valentine she had
once suspected to come from Jem Wilson--she copied Bamford's
beautiful little poem.
X. RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL.
"My heart, once soft as woman's tear, is gnarled
With gloating on the ills I cannot cure."
--ELLIOTT.
"Then guard and shield her innocence,
Let her not fall like me;
'T were better, oh! a thousand times,
She in her grave should be."
--The Outcast.
Despair settled down like a heavy cloud; and now and then, through
the dead calm of sufferings, came pipings of stormy winds,
foretelling the end of these dark prognostics. In times of
sorrowful or fierce endurance, we are often soothed by the mere
repetition of old proverbs which tell the experience of our
forefathers; but now, "it's a long lane that has no turning," "the
weariest day draws to an end," etc.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239