ton?

Around thee stand those who, if thou fallest, will perish--and that thou
knowest; around thy calm, sorrowful, but erect figure, are a melancholy
group--thy afflicted mother--the wife of thy bosom--thy two little
children--thy brave and beautiful sister--Yet think not, Misfortune!
that over this man thou art about to achieve thy accustomed triumphs.
Here, behold, thou hast a MAN to contend with; nay, more, a CHRISTIAN
MAN, who hath calmly girded up his loins against the coming fight!

'Twas Sabbath evening, some five weeks or so after the happening of the
mournful events above commemorated, and Kate, having spent, as usual,
several hours keeping watch beside the silent and motionless figure of
her mother, had quitted the chamber for a brief interval, thinking to
relieve her oppressed spirits by walking, for a little while, up and
down the long gallery. Having slowly paced backwards and forwards once
or twice, she rested against the little oriel window at the farthest
extremity of the gallery, and gazed with saddened eye upon the setting
sun, till at length, in calm grandeur, it disappeared beneath the
horizon. 'Twas to Kate a solemn and mournful sign; especially followed
as it was by the deepening shadows and gloom of evening. She sighed, and
with her hands crossed on her bosom, gazed, with a tearful eye, into the
darkening sky, where glittered the brilliant evening star. Thus she
remained, a thousand pensive and tender thoughts passing through her
mind, till the increasing chills of evening warned her to retire. "I
will go," said she to herself, as she walked slowly along, "and try to
play the evening hymn--I may not have _many_ more opportunities!" With
this view, she gently opened the drawing-room door, and, glancing
around, found that she should be alone. The fire gave the only light.
She opened the organ with a sigh, and then sat down before it for some
minutes without touching the keys. At length she struck them very
gently, as if fearful of disturbing those who, she soon recollected,
were too distant to hear her. Ah! how many associations were stirred up
as she played over the simple and solemn air! At length, in a low and
rather tremulous voice, she began--

"Soon will the evening star, with silver ray,
Shed its mild radiance o'er the sacred day;
Resume we, then, ere night and silence reign,
The rites which holiness and heaven ordain"----

She sang the last line somewhat indistinctly; an