No tenderness in him. And yet I know How changed the present scene! Behold! I see MY ABSENT CHILDREN. has been a very dull wedding-day with us this year. Up to the present time many years have come and gone, and always found us with at least some representatives of our younger branches at the table. But this year my wife and I faced each other at our otherwise desolate table; or, rather, we should have faced each other, but that I told Mary to alter the arrangement, and so we sat cornerwise. Let me try to remember how it all happened. My eldest boy is in a house of business in London, had got his leave to come down for the day or so, and had made all his little arrangements accordingly. But then, just as he was starting, in comes a note from one of the senior partners: "Mr. Sampson is taken seriously ill, and cannot go over to Vienna, as was arranged. Can you go? and can you start at once?" Now, Tom is a very rising young man. He was never good at books, you see. We intended him to be Senior Wrangler, and either Archbishop of Canterbury or Lord Chancellor. But the good doctor who undertook his education assured us that we must not expect anything of that sort from Tom. "Something commercial, now, I should suggest," said the doctor. We did not like the advice at first, I can assure you; but, nevertheless, we thought it over, and took it. The doctor was quite right. Tom has prospered wonderfully. He may not understand books, but he does understand men and women, and business. And then he has a wonderful turn for picking up languages without the intervention of grammars. I am told he speaks about half-a-dozen very well. So there he is off to Vienna, and we miss him for the first time on our wedding-day. Well, well: perhaps when he comes back he may get a rise, and be able to marry. I know he wants to. Then there is sweet little Susie. Near about our last weddingday but one we handed her over to a fellow in Lincolnshire—a parson. I thought him a very dull fellow; good, no doubt, but dull. Susie thought him the most delightful person she had ever met, and my good wife took Susie's side altogether. Did I know that Herbert was high up in the first class of classics?—that he might have spent his days lapped in cotton-wool as a college don, but preferred early marriage (with our Susie) and active ministerial work? Did I....? But why enlarge on these points? I never had any objection to the man: he was a most suitable husband for my little girl. Only-I repeat it-I thought him dull. Perhaps he thought me dull also. Anyhow, dull or not, Susie went with him into Lincolnshire, and there she is. Last year both she and her husband managed to come over and keep her poor old father's and mother's wedding-day. But this year it is impossible. The third generation has just arrived, and I suppose I must rejoice at that, and with that console myself as best I may for my dear little Susie's absence. Jack and Teddy-where were they? Ah! who knows? Yonder, in my writing drawer, lies their last letter, dated from some out-of-the-way place in Canada. From it I understood that Jack was in a dry goods store; that Teddy, who has a strong literary turn, was in a newspaper-office; and that both of them were on the move somewhere else. We are not to be troubled about them; they are both doing well, and have saved a little money. They have both joined the Union Church in the town, and teach in the Sabbath-school; and they send their tender love to their dear mother, and wish they could be in England on her wedding-day. But they hope Tom and the others will remember them. If their mother and I are the others, I am sure we do, at all times, and at the best of places-" the throne of grace.' I wonder whether Maggie-or, more properly, Margaret-thinks about us much? According to her letters, she has so much to get through that she has no time to think. What with the work she has to do for others, and the efforts she has to make for her own improvement, I do not wonder at it, poor girl. I have not yet told you that Maggie is a governess pupil at a Geneva pension, teaching English, music, and anything else she can, and picking up French and German in return. A brave girl is Maggie, and a clever one before she went away, her mother's right hand; and, now she is gone, continually in our remembrance. Who put my slippers to warm ready for me when I got home from a long round? Maggie. Who played the tunes I like to hear, and sung the little songs that touched me most? Maggie. But she will come back to us one day, and the sooner the better. And, though I hope the girl will get a good husband, yet I know it will be a hard time for her father and mother when she does. Then there is one who will never come back to us. We shall go to her, but she will not return to us. She, too, was with us on our last wedding-day-Nellie, the youngest and the dearest of all— the delight of our eyes, the brightness and sunshine of our home -the one who was to be the solace of our failing years. Do we grudge her that for which she has exchanged our dull middle-class home, our dingy street in a second-rate town, our very common place pleasures, and our not unfrequent troubles? No, indeed. She is with all that is bright and pure and holy; and, above all, she is with Him she loved even better than she loved us. No; we would not have her back, even for our wedding-day. Still, it is sad to sit and feel that our children are away from us. It seems a natural thing for the old ones to pass away from the young, and leave them to fight the battle and do the work of life instead. But there is a peculiar sadness when the young ones leave the old; and yet such seems to be one of the increasing penalties we pay to our advancing civilisation. The opening of new countries, the condensation of population in the old ones, the rapid means of communication, disintegrate our households, and separate them into disconnected fragments almost before they are completely formed. Happily, there are new facilities for uniting them again. It may be-and, indeed, we hope it-that, if my wife and I are spared to see another wedding-day, we shall see our dear ones once more gathered together-Tom and Susie, perhaps, even having added new members to our little circle. After all, true union is not to be affected by mere local contact. The communion of saints-the noblest of all unions amongst created beings-is not a local, nor temporal, but a spiritual thing. Individuals pass and change, but the great family is eternal. MISS ST. COLUMB'S LOST DAY: AND WHAT SHE GAINED BY IT. N all the town there was not one more full of energy and hard work than Miss St. Columb. If anybody wanted to get a child into an asylum or school, or to gain admission for a patient to an infirmary or hospital, or to get a protégé into a benevolent society of any kind, the cry on all sides was, "Go to Miss St. Columb! she will do more than anybody for you;" and it was quite true. The consequence was that Miss St. Columb had enough to do, and too much even for her. It will be understood, therefore, that the year had not sufficient days, nor the days sufficient hours, for this busiest of "busy bees,” and that her lament when night came was very, very often, "Oh dear! I have not done half so much to-day as I intended and wanted to do." Poor Miss St. Columb! she was strongly impressed with the truth," the night cometh when no man can work ;" and, being a zealous disciple of Him "who went about doing good,” she was now and then over-anxious lest she should not have done all that her hand found to do before evening shades set in. "Not a moment later than a quarter to six, Anne," she said to her servant one night, as she went towards her bedroom. "I have a great deal to do to-morrow, and hope to have written twenty letters before breakfast; so you will have the fire lighted and the little parlour ready by a quarter to six, won't you? I shall set my alarum for a quarter to five." Anne did not look cheerful at the proposed arrangement; her face was tied up, and she had been longing for bed, intending to take an extra half-hour in the morning. Night passed; the alarum did its duty, and so did poor Anne. Miss St. Columb found a bright fire waiting for her at a quarter to six. She sat down to her table and took out her list. "First: Jane Henly for the blind asylum. Yes; I will write to those twenty subscribers at once," she said; but hardly was the pen in her hand when Anne appeared, saying, "Please, ma'am, the sweep is come to ask if he may do the large parlour this morning; he's in the village, and it would be very handy for him." "Oh! by all means," said Miss St. Columb, setting the date on the first of her twenty letters. E |