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PART VII.

"Thou cottage, gleaming near the tuft of trees,
Thou tell'st of joy more than I dare believe
Falls to the lot of man-where Fancy sees,

(For credulous Fancy still her dreams will weave,)
Him whose calm fate no restless cares deceive,

Blest by your smiles, pure as the mountain breeze,
Love, Peace, Humility, whose ministeries

Give all that happiest mortals can receive.
Yon sun-tipt groves embosomed harmony,
As fades the splendour of departing day,
Swells on my ear most like the minstrelsy,
Which from thy inmate's pipe can bear away
The soul of him who listens, till he hear

Sounds that awaken love's forgotten tear."

OTHER thoughts and other feelings now occupied the minds, interested the feelings, and engaged the attention of Arnold and Margaret. Dear as was their quiet nook, it was now rendered doubly so by the little intruder, who had lately drawn within its walls the breath of life. Oh! there is a tenderness which a parent only can understand an emotion only intelligible to that bosom, which, while the eye looks upon some object endued with existence, can exult in the thought that from it, that object drew its being!

"O nature, say! to what extatic joy

Wilt thou not soar, borne high on magic wing,
When on a father's and a mother's gaze,

First smiles the baby that owes life to them ?"

Margaret had now recovered from her confinement, and all its anguish had long since been forgotten in the joy of an infant born. From hour to hour, and from day to day, she nursedshe tended it; delighted with the gentle offices that had devolved on her. To her, at least the name of mother was new; and though each succeeding moment that rolled over her, detracted from its novelty, it seemed only to enhance her delight. Nor did Arnold not participate in these emotions--the emotions of her to whom affection had united him, and whose fondness had been not reluctantly, but yet with a bashfulness that endeared the gift plighted to him, and ratified on the altar which received their vows. Each morning that gilded the hills that overlooked the glen, deep in whose bosom lay the peaceful mansion that shut him from the world, and every evening that hung her crimson curtain over the distant mountains that pointed

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their eyes and invited their hopes to heaven, only added strength to that promise which had bound their lives in one. And now, when a pledge lay before him, more tangible than emotions which only dwelt within, that there was a heart indissolubly linked to his--when,

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he beheld his Margaret, her for whom he had suffered so much, hanging with all a mother's tenderness over the babe, that owned him as its sire; say you, who have felt the amptitude of paternal bliss,

"Was he not happy? Say, was he unblest?"

No rose-bud of the

But time passed and Gertrude grew. mountains was fresher, no lily of the vallies fairer than she: clear as the heavens above her, when not a cloud wandered over the azure expanse, was Gertrude's brow; beaming meanwhile with all that thoughtless gaiety-we would call it innocence, were innocence, alas! longer applicable to any of a fallen race-which so wins upon the heart, that while it scans the dark vicissitudes of life, contemplates with pleasure-pleasure of a mournful but of a sacred kind-the joys that rise and fade in such light and rapid succession, in the bosom of infancy and childhood. They are unconscious that storms are gathering in their horizon, for man is born to sorrow, and sorrow assuredly will be the portion of his cup below, but for a little they are hid from his view. Though the cloud is deepening, which is destined to involve in obscurity the sun that now sheds on them his genial and reviving beams for a transient interval, meanwhile the ray is warm, and falls on them with an exhilarating influence.

Such were the sensations with which her parents often gazed on Gertrude. They had known, by sad experience, the vanity of all earthly expectations. Their own hearts had once beat buoyantly— and they did not forget the period and how changefully had "time and chance since happened to them!" when the world was deemed a paradise, and its gloomy theatre one wide arena of happiness. Their own hearts had once beat buoyantly, and they wondered not that Gertrude's should do so too.. Nor did they frown upon the smile that brightened her cheek. Too well had they learnt that lesson, which told them it would yet be changed into a tear; but they waited with resigned supplication the arrival of the moment fraught with the mournful mandate-they would not anticipate its flight. Often, thus, would they mingle theirs with her mirthful glee; with her becoming, as the poet has sweetly fabled of our elder sire," again a child in heart." To them belonged to-day, and "unto it sufficient was the evil thereof." Their hopes and wishes were, indeed, far-far beyond all that life could furnish, or time provide, yet were there flowers, fresh and fragrant, growing along their way, and they did not disdain to pluck them as they passed.

Calmly now did many a moment glide onward while the fond and tender parents endeavoured to guide the feet of their infant into the paths of peace. They had at length found them, but not exclusively for themselves. In the days of trial and difficulty in other years, they had been unacquainted with one spot where hope might repose. Tossed as they were with the billows of affliction, they had felt the proud waters, as it were go over their soul, and yet knew not whither to flee for refuge. Of that "rock which was higher than they," and whose shadow is so refreshing in a land of drought and barrenness, they had perhaps heard, but never had they been led to its shelter-never had they rested beneath its covert. But there was a season when they were to be brought home to that fold from which they had wandered. Over it watched One, who had not spared himself for its safety. By him they had been found, and they could not but recognize, in his marred and blood-stained aspect, the good shepherd, who had given his life for the sheep.

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Gladly then they followed him, for he had taught them to know his voice. He had led them beside still waters, and made them to lie down in green pastures. He did not promise them, indeed, that trials should not be theirs, but he had assured them that they should not sink under the pressure, for he would bear with them their weight. To him, thereafter, were their eyes ever directed; and, though he had called them to be his servants, his yoke was easy to them, and his burthen light. Thus, time, with all its troubles, was mollified, as it were, with the balm of hope; and in journeying through a wilderness, which the word of unerring truth has declared waste and howling,' they had yet consolations more than sufficient to counterbalance all their ills. But their dearest and sweetest employment of an earthly kind, was the nurture of Gertrude. Young she was, and fair, like some exotic from another world. The rain, and the dews, soft as ever fell from heaven, seem to have watered her spring of life; and she grew a beauteous and a goodly plant. The sun, too, you would have supposed, had shed on her their gentlest influence; nor had the moon waned on her with a blighting power. A cloud occasionally might have crossed her path, but it was such only as would mitigate the fever of infancy, and tend, under a higher direction, to make its little delirium subside, in due season, into the quietude of everlasting beatitude and peace. Yet, while fondest expectation hovered over her, they could not but think of evils still, it might be, in the womb of futurity, and hereafter to be developed amidst the wildest hurricanes of a wintry time. Their joy, indeed, was yet unsullied; and in anticipation, meanwhile, all wore an aspect serene as the calmness of a summer eve, when Nature wins you, by her loveliness, to silent meditation on the deep sweetness of all around. In the distant perspective no leaf is moving beside you not a breath is heard. But storm and tempest may be working behind the fairest mantle of a morning sky.

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