Part 6

Annie Mortimer had been sent to him as a ministering angel: she was the orphan and penniless daughter of Mr Worthington's dearest friend and former college-chum, and she had come to find a shelter beneath the humble roof of the pious guardian, to whose earthly care she had been solemnly bequeathed. Paul's curacy was not many miles distant from the town where Bessie had fixed her resting-place; and it was generally surmised by the select few who were in the secret of little Bessie's singular history, that she regarded Annie Mortimer with especial favour and affection, from the fact, that Annie enjoyed the privilege of solacing and cheering Paul Worthington's declining years. Each spoke of her as a dear adopted daughter, and Annie equally returned the affection of both.

Poor solitaries! what long anxious years they had known, separated by circumstance, yet knit together in the bonds of enduring love!

I pictured them at festive winter seasons, at their humble solitary boards; and in summer prime, when song-birds and bright perfumed flowers call lovers forth into the sunshine rejoicingly. They had not dared to rejoice during their long engagement; yet Bessie was a sociable creature, and did not mope or shut herself up, but led a life of active usefulness, and was a general favourite amongst all classes. They had never contemplated the possibility of evading Bessie's solemn promise to her dying father; to their tender consciences, that fatal promise was as binding and stringent, as if the gulf of marriage or conventual vows yawned betwixt them. We had been inclined to indulge some mirth at the expense of the little gray gossip, when she first presented herself to our notice; but now we regarded her as an object of interest, surrounded by a halo of romance, fully shared in by her charming, venerable lover. And this was good Cousin Con's elucidation of the riddle, which she narrated with many digressions, and with animated smiles, to conceal tears of sympathy. Paul Worthington and little Bessie did not like their history to be discussed by the rising frivolous generation; it was so unworldly, so sacred, and they looked forward with humble hope so soon to be united for ever in the better land, that it pained and distressed them to be made a topic of conversation.

Were we relating fiction, it would be easy to bring this antiquated pair together, even at the eleventh hour; love and constancy making up for the absence of one sweet ingredient, evanescent, yet beautiful--the ingredient we mean of youth. But as this is a romance of reality, we are fain to divulge facts as they actually occurred, and as we heard them from authentic sources. Paul and Bessie, divided in their lives, repose side by side in the old church-yard. He dropped off first, and Bessie doffed her gray for sombre habiliments of darker hue. Nor did she long remain behind, loving little soul! leaving her property to Annie Mortimer, and warning her against long engagements.

The last time we heard of Annie, she was the happy wife of an excellent man, who, fully coinciding in the opinion of the little gray gossip, protested strenuously against more than six weeks' courtship, and carried his point triumphantly.

THE WET SHROUD.

'Ach, Sohn! was hält dich zurück?' 'Siehe, Mutter, das sind die Thränen.'

MUTTERTHRÄNEN.

They gave her back again: They never asked to see her face; But gazed upon her vacant place, Moaning, like those in pain.

There was a brief hot thirst; A thirsting of the heart for streams Which never more save in sweet dreams From that lost fount should burst.

There was a frightful cry, As if the whole great earth were dead; Yet was one arrow only sped, One, only, called to die.

Then all grew calm as sleep; And they in household ways once more Did go: the anguish half was o'er, For they had learned to weep.

They stood about her bed, And whispered low beneath their cloud; For she might hear them speaking loud-- She was so near, they said.

Softly her pillow pressing, With reverent brows they mutely lay; They scarcely missed the risen clay In her pure soul's caressing.

Last, from their eyes were driven Those heart-drops, lest--so spoke their fears-- Her robes all heavy with their tears Might clog her flight to Heaven!

E.L.H.

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End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437, by Various