CHAPTER VIII.

ELISE TO CECILIA.

_Two months later._

"When I last wrote to you, my Cecilia, it was winter. Winter, severe icy
winter, had also gathered itself about my heart--my life's joy was
wrapped in his winding-sheet, and it seemed to me as if no more spring
could bloom, no more life could exist; and that I should never again
have the heart to write a cheerful or hopeful word. And now--now it is
spring! The lark sings again the ascension-song of the earth; the May
sun diffuses his warming beams through my chamber, and the grass becomes
already green upon the grave of my first-born, my favourite! And I----Oh
Lord! thou who smitest, thou also healest, and I will praise thee! for
every affliction which thou sendest becomes good if it be only received
with patience. And if thou concealest thyself for a season--as it
appears to our weak vision--thou revealest thyself yet soon again,
kinder and more glorious than before! For a little while and we see thee
not, and again for a little while and we see thee, and our hearts
rejoice and drink strength and enjoyment out of the cup which thou,
Almighty One! fillest eternally. Yes, every thing in life becomes good,
if that life be only spent in God!

"But in those dark wintry hours it was often gloomy and tumultuous
within me. Ah, Cecilia, I would not that he should die! He was my only
son, my first-born child. I suffered most at his birth; I sang most
beside his cradle; my heart leapt up first and highest with maternal joy
at his childish play. He was my summer child, born in the midsummer of
nature and of my life and my strength, and then--he was so full of life,
so beautiful and good! No, I would not that he should die, or that my
beautiful son should be laid in the black earth! And as the time drew
nearer and nearer, and I saw that it must be--then it was dark in me.
But the last night--Oh, it was a most wonderful night!--then it was
otherwise. Do you know, Cecilia, that I sung gaily, triumphantly, by the
death-bed of my first-born! Now I cannot comprehend it. But this
night--he had during the foregoing day suffered much, and his
sufferings had reconciled me to his death. They abated as death
approached, and he besought of me, as he had often done in the years of
his childhood, to sing him to sleep. I sang--I was able to sing. He
received pleasure from the song, which increased in power, and with a
heavenly smile, whilst heavenly pictures seemed to float before