ent must often err. She is too young as yet for me to be able
to foresee the particular bent her character will assume, but I
entreat you to be her candid friend and firm adviser when she will
assuredly want both."

On the trying scenes of that period I will not longer linger; for
there is something unutterably solemn in the tranquil passing away of
a good man's soul, something that hallows to our thoughts even the
fear-fraught moment of dissolution from which mere mortality
instinctively shrinks. Yet it is a sad thing when so much worth and
wisdom leaves the earth forever; and to those who realize the
inestimable advantages and useful influences of a high example, it is
a mournful sight to look on the closing sunset of one who evidenced
the beautiful union between holiness and humanity.

CHAPTER II.

Spirit-like fair forms are pressing
'Round her now,
With their angel hands caressing
Her pale brow.

Words of solace they are chanting,
Sweet and clear,
That evermore will now be haunting
Her life here.

I visited the cottage frequently, and for several months after Mr.
Germaine's death, it was the scene of no ordinary grief. Mrs. Germaine
bore her bereavement patiently--for it was an event she had long
anticipated with womanly meekness and resignation; but she mourned
most deeply--for it is a great mistake to think commonplace persons
deficient in vividness of feeling. I believe their emotions are as
keen, and generally more enduring, than those of more decided minds,
from the very fact of their possessing few self-resources to divert
the course of affliction. Be this as it may, Mrs. Germaine was soon,
in all that was apparent, the quiet and anxious mother she had always
been; and if she suffered still, it was in the silence of a heart that
had no language for its sorrows. Far wilder and more vehement was the
passionate and unresisted tide of Theresa's suffering; and for many
weeks she refused all the consolation that could be offered to a child
of her age. She would sit by my side and converse of her father, with
an admiration for his virtues, and an appreciation of his character
far beyond what I had supposed she could comprehend.

This violent emotion necessarily exhausted itself, as a heavy cloud
weeps itself away; but for a long time she was painfully dejected, and
her face lost its childishness of expression, and wore a look of
appealing, unspeakab