The Adopted Daughter [pp. 89]

THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER.
He wrote, and handed it to me, saying, "I shall
be in New York in May, at the annual conference
meeting. Can you remember to keep a tryst so
long?"
I could well remember, I said, and should not fail
to keep it. The sun was down, and the motion of
the cars was checked in the suburbs of Baltimore.
The clergyman had buttoned his coat, and drawn on
his gloves, talking the while of the pleasantness of
such meetings and the melancholy of partings,
when a slender, pale-faced young man came aboard,
and grasped the hand of the old man, whom he
had apparently come to meet, most cordially. He
has got home, I thought. What a blessedness there
is in getting home! And for the moment I would
have given the world to stay that night beneath his
roof-tithe night was darkening before me, and all
the future seemed so, too. I could scarcely restrain
my tears, and say farewell. Only the knowledge
that I must not betray feeling, which, perhaps, under the circumstances, no one else would have had,
kept them back. When he was gone, I drew my
vail before my face, and let them drop and drop
as they would. As I looked from the window,
across the common, I caught a last glimpse. But
he did not look back-why should he? We glided
in between walls of houses; lamps were burning,
and people were passing to and fro, and life in all
its multifarious forms and phases was busy; but in
the vast throng there was no one to look up and be
glad because of me.
Men and boys began to call from the windows
and doors, "Have a carriage?" " Have a carriage?"
"Baggage?" "Baggage?" "Here's your carriage!"
"I'll take your baggage-United States Hotelhere's your carriage!" " Railroad House-this way,
if you please!" And amid the'din I sat alone,
sadly repeating some of my own early verses:
No beautiful star will twinkle
To-night through my window-pane,
As I list to the mournful falling
Of the leaves and the autumn rain.
High up in his leafy covert
The squirrel a shelter hath,
And the tall grass hides the rabbit
Asleep in the church-yard path.
O for a friend that loved me!
O for a gray-haired sire,
To sit, with a quaint, old story,
To-night by my cabin fire!
May came round; the tryst was not forgotten;
but ill-health kept me within doors; but if life and
health are spared me till another May-time, I mean
to attend the annual conference to which my transient friend belongs, though, no doubt, he has long
ago forgotten the day in the railroad cars.
Opening my card-case a few days ago, I saw, to
my regret, that the carefully kept card was gone;
but no matter, the name is well transcribed in
memory. There it will stay while memory stays;
and often in my wanderings through the world
will I think of the author of that little workReminiscences in the West Indies.
THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER.
BY PEV. B. ST. JAMES BTY.
WHISTLES the wind without, but now within
Blazes the crackling wood;
The father tells this simple tale of life
To still the merry brood:
Dark and dreary, dreary was the gloom,
And thick the falling snow;
But gloom and snow, alas! they could not hide
From me the world's stern woe.
A pale, thin hand beset me in the way A gentle, feeble word;
And who could dare refuse the little hand
When that sweet voice was heard!
It led me to a dim-lit, dreary room,
Where want in triumph dwelt,
Except when love would speak a word, so sweet
The sternest heart would melt.
And there, within the dim and dreary place,
Worn out with want and grief,
A pale, sweet form of faded beauty lay,
Like wither'd autumn leaf.
The light that flicker'd o'er the youthful face
Upon the sleeper smiled;
And thus, untold, I knew I stood before
A mother and her child.
The little, sweet-voic'd daughter trembling said,
"They tell me she must die!"
I felt, but dare not say, how true it was,
For death was standing by.
Yet said I, "The Father doeth all things well:
He hears the feeblest cries."
She said, "He doeth all things well;" but then
The tears stood in her eyes.
The mother woke, and looking wildly round,
She saw us standing near;
And when we knelt, her arms encircled both,
Like children in their fear.
She put the little daughter's hand in mine,
"Thou'lt love her as thine own?"
I scarce had time to look an answer back
Before a stifled moan.
I trembled then, because full well I knew
That heart's deep wail of woe
Was but the echo of a deeper grief
That burst unseen below.
The little daughter dwelleth now with me I love her as mine own;
Her smiles are like the summer's sunny light
'Mid brightest flowers thrown.
The father stops-a cheek bedewed with tears
Is pressed against his own;
It is the same-the little daughter once,
But now a maiden grown.
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