Maria J. McIntosh

“ She was pale, very pale, and dressed with even more than usual simplicity; yet there was in her face so much of the soul's light, that she seemed to them beautiful. Her congratulations were offered in speechless emotion. The brotherly kiss which Ernest pressed upon her cheek called up no color there, nor disturbed the graceful stillness of her manner; and when Sophie, who had really become sincerely attached to her, threw herself into her arms, she returned her embrace with tenderness, whispering as she did so, "Make Ernest happy, Sophie, and I will love you always!" ”

“ You do not seem to have thought that the angry feelings and hasty words which displeased your friends were an offence to Him. You have thought of your temper as an unhappiness for which you were to be pitied, rather than as a great wrong for which you were to be blamed. You have even had hard thoughts of God, as if he had caused this unhappiness. Think of His kindness and love to you, Ellen, and be ashamed of such thoughts. Who but He gave you so tender a father—so kind a sister as Mary—and so generous a friend as your Uncle Villars? ”

“ Look on that form of graceful symmetry, on those large black eyes with their jetty fringes, on the rich coloring of her rounded cheeks, and the dewy freshness of her red lip, and you will forget to censure. But see, the mirror reflects another form—a form so slender that it seems scarcely to have attained the full proportions of womanhood, and a face whose soft gray eyes and fair complexion, and hair of the palest gold, present a singular contrast to the dark yet glowing beauty beside her. This is Mary Grayson, the orphan cousin of Caroline Danby, who has grown up in her father's house. ”

“ What is it, Clara?" Mrs. Wilmot's eye rested just then on the locket which she wore on her wrist, and this prompted the question—"Clara, did you speak the whole truth to-day when you told me this locket was paid for? Do you owe nothing on it?"
"No, mamma Wilmot; nothing on that, but I owe—" she stopped.
"Not Cecille, Clara," said Mrs. Wilmot; "you could not be so thoughtless—so selfish—as to keep her hard earnings from her for a single day, for any purpose of your own. Speak, my child, and tell me it is not so." ”

“ Lucy spoke solemnly, and it was with no light accent that Edward Houstoun replied—"You mistake, Lucy—you mistake—I am in truth no less an idler than yourself—a looker-on, with no part in the game of life. To the Lady Houstoun belong both the fortune and the influence." A mocking smile had arisen to his lip, but, as he caught her look of surprise, it passed away, leaving a gentle gravity in its place, while he continued—"Do not think I mean to complain of my mother, Lucy. She has been ever affectionate and indulgent to me. She leaves me no want that she can perceive. ”

“ The morning was cloudless, and the garden looked beautifully, with its leaves and flowers glittering with dew-drops. But I only saw it from my window, for though Harriet and Mary, starting from sleep at the first sound of my voice, sprang eagerly up, and, dressing in haste, waited impatiently for the tap of Florence, which was to summon us to our morning walk; they waited in vain. Florence could not be awoke, or when awake, could not be induced to rise; and breakfast was announced, and we were all seated at table before she made her appearance. ”

“ Dark, sinful men as they were, fresh from brutal crime, those strains touched a long silent chord in their hearts—a chord linked with the memory of a smiling village in their own distant land—with a mother's love and the innocence of childhood. Faint—faint, alas! were those memories, and Mr. Sinclair's "amen" had scarcely issued from his lips, when the eyes of the leader rested on the beautiful face of Mary Sinclair, as, pressed to the side of her father, she stretched her arms out over her dying mother, and turned her eyes imploringly on their dreaded visitors. ”

“ It is bad enough to have to teach the stupid things, without being obliged to get up at daybreak for them."
"Daybreak, Ellen!" said Mary, moving the window-curtain and letting in a stream of sunshine.
"Well, I don't care what time it is, Mary, it is earlier than I choose to get up, and earlier than I would get up, if it was not for them; and there would be some comfort in it if one thought they would ever learn any thing: but for such a stupid set!"
"Stupid, Ellen!—why Mrs. Maclean and I have just been saying what bright intelligent children they were." ”

“ Meeta loves Ernest so truly, so entirely, that she cannot be said to yield her happiness to his, but rather to find it in his; his joy, his honor, are hers."
"And can woman feel thus?" asked Mr. Schwartz, as he looked with admiration upon his wife, her cheeks glowing and her eyes lighted with the enthusiasm of a spirit akin to Meeta's.
"There are many mysteries in woman which you have yet to fathom," said Mrs. Schwartz, with a smile.
To the good pastor and his wife, the next day, even Sophie was a less interesting object of contemplation than Meeta, who stood at her side. ”

“ No, Jessie, those who do right are seldom afraid, for you know the Bible says, 'the righteous are as bold as a lion.' I am very glad, my child, of all that has happened to you to-day. You may have harder trials of your truth than even this before you die, but you will remember this day, and how happy you have felt for telling the truth; and you will remember, too, if all the good things on earth are offered to you as the price of one falsehood, that your old grandmother told you truth is better than all, Jessie,—truth is better than all. ”

“ Cavendish closed the door with a smiling face, and Herbert Latimer turned for another hour to his books and papers. At a quarter before five he stood with his mother in the drawing-room of Mr. Cavendish, and received his first introduction to one who soon became the star of his life.
Mary Cavendish was not beautiful—far less could the word pretty have been applied to her—but she was lovely. All that we most love in woman, all pure and peaceful thoughts, all sweet and gentle affections, seemed to beam from her eyes, or to sit throned upon her fair and open brow. ”

“ I pray thee show me what is right to do, and make me love to do it.' As soon as I said 'what is right to do,' it came into my head that it was right for me to do all I could for Alice, if everybody else did ever so much for her; and now, Aunt Kitty, I wish I had a great deal more money, that I might give it all to her—and though I am just as sorry for Alice, I do not feel half so bad about her; for if we are willing to do all we can for her, God, who loves her a great deal more than any of us, will certainly give her back her eyesight. ”

“ With feeble steps and slow she still walked her accustomed round of charity, and thus living for duty she lived for God, and had His peace shed abroad in her heart, even while sorrow was wearing away the springs of her life. She loved to sit alone and send her thoughts forward to the future—not of this life, but of that higher life in which there shall be no shadow on the brightness of our joy—where love shall be without fear—no war shall desolate—no opposing duty shall separate—no death shall place its stony barrier between loving hearts. ”

“ My gentle Mary has a strength of character you little dream of, and though never very gay, she will not long remain unreasonably sad; but my poor Ellen,—with a nature so affectionate that she cannot be happy unless she is loved, and a temper so passionate that she will often try the forbearance of her best friends almost beyond endurance,—how much suffering is before her! Do not blame me, if before I go from her, I strive to make Mary's love for her such as her mother's would have been—such as not even her faults shall be able to overcome. ”

“ Sinclair, bears the solemn impress of his presence. Beside the bed on which the lifeless limbs have been composed with tender care, the pastor kneels. His prayer is no longer, "Let this cup pass from me"—he is struggling for power to say, "Father, not my will, but Thine be done!" In an upper room lies Mary Sinclair. Tears are falling fast as summer rain-drops from her closed eyes; but she utters neither sob nor moan, and by the dim light of the shaded lamp she seems to the two women, who, with well-meant but officious kindness, have insisted on watching with her through the night, to sleep. ”

“ The quality in his appearance and manners, which first impressed the observer, was refinement—perfect elegance, without the least touch of coxcombry. It had been said of him, that he had brought home the taste in dress of a Parisian, the imaginativeness of a German, and the voice and passion for music of an Italian. Few were admitted to such intimacy with him as to look into the deeper qualities of the mind—but those who were, saw there the sturdy honesty of John Bull, and the courageous heart and independent spirit of his own America. ”

“ Little can be told of Ellen's journey. In ten minutes after leaving Colonel Melville's she found herself on board a steamboat, surrounded by a crowd of strangers. Unaccustomed to such scenes, she was bewildered by the confusion and bustle around her, and clung to Mr. Wallace as if he had been a friend of long years, instead of an acquaintance of a day. But so kind and good was Mr. Wallace, so thoughtful of Ellen's comfort, so considerate of her feelings, and so indulgent to her wishes, that under any circumstances he could not long have seemed a stranger to her. ”

“ Arlington's sketch-book, of which I have already spoken, served to elicit one of our points of sympathy. Bound down by the iron chain of necessity to that point of space occupied by my own land, and that point of time filled by my own life, yet with a heart longing for acquaintance with the beautiful distant and the noble past, I have ever loved the creations of that art which furnished food to these longings; and as my fortune has denied me the possession of fine paintings, I have become somewhat noted in my own little circle for my collection of fine engravings. ”

“ Do you not suppose that Cecille, though poor and alone in a strange country with her feeble old grandmother, was happier with her cheerful temper and her trust in the goodness of her kind heavenly Father, than those children who fret at being awoke in the morning, though they are surrounded with every comfort and have the kindest people to attend upon them,—who sit down with dissatisfied faces to a breakfast-table covered with good things because they fancy something which is not there, and who thus go through the whole day complaining of what they have and wishing for what they cannot get? ”

“ A very short walk from their own doors brought them into a forest which seemed to their young imaginations endless; where gigantic trees interlaced their branches, and with their green foliage shut out the sun in summer, or in winter reflected it in dazzling brightness, and a thousand gorgeous colors, from the icicles which cased their leafless branches and pendent twigs. There was not a footpath, a sunny hill or flowery dell, for miles around their homes, which had not been trodden together by Meeta Werner and Ernest Rainer before their acquaintance was a year old. ”