d
disinterested, the solidly assured friendship which results, is a
felicity scarcely inferior to any known on earth. The example of such
a relation between Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Hemans was charming. Its
inexpressible preciousness to the sensitive soul of that sweet
singer, every reader of sensibility, who traces the numerous
allusions to it in her letters and poems, will recognize with
emotion. There is much in the relation between a mother and the wife
of her son to create peculiar interest and love. And they, allowing
for exceptions of an opposite character, become the warmest friends
in unnumbered instances. A better example can hardly be desired than
is furnished in the sweet pastoral tale of Hebrew Scripture. What
passage in literature is more pervaded with the pathetic charm of the
affection of the early world than the story of Naomi and her widowed
daughter-in-law, Ruth, the Moabitish ancestress of David and of
Jesus? Ruth said, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where
thou lodgest I will lodge; and thy people shall be my people, and thy
God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I he buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and
me." So they two, Naomi and Ruth, went till they came to Bethlehem;
and there did they sojourn together until the end.

All the near ties of kindred, by the closeness of association and
sympathy naturally consequent on them, must often prove the fostering
occasions or incentives of warm and lasting friendships between those
whom they draw together. In thousands of families there is an aunt
who becomes to her nieces a friend only less intimate and trusted
than the mother herself. Such was the case with Mrs. Barhauld and her
brother's only daughter, Lucy Aikin. In a multitude of families there
are likewise cousins bound to each other by bonds as numerous and
glowing as those of sisterhood. So, too, there are countless examples
in which a wife and the sister of her husband grow into the most
ardent sincerity of friendship. An interesting instance of this union
is celebrated by Pliny in his famous panegyric of Trajan. Pliny says
it is a wonder for two ladies of the same quality to dwell in the
same place, without feuds or contention. But he declares that Plotina
and Marciana, the wife and the sister of Trajan, never disputed over
the right of precedence; but had the same in