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DEATH OF DANFORTH’S GRANDFATHER. 83
The old man did not speak, but his eyes opened wildly, and he
fell forward upon his face.
’ William and Sarah were coquetting, with her lessons, under the
old pear-tree, between the French phrases; he had been whispering
something sweeter than words ever sounded to her before in any
language, and her cheeks were one flush of roses as his breath floated
over them. =
*¢ Tell me —look at me —any thing to say that you have known
this all along,’’ he said, bending his flashing eyes on her face with a
glance that made her tremble.
She attempted to look up, but failed in the effort. — Like a rose
that feels the sunshine too warmly, she drooped under the glow of
her own blushes. .
‘© Do speak,’’ he pleaded. ce
*¢ Yes,’ she answered, lifting her face with modest firmness to
his, ‘* Yes, I do love you.”’
- As the words left her lips, a cry made them both start.
‘Tt is grandmother’s voice; he isill again,’”’ said the young man.
-They moved away, shocked by a sudden recoil of feelings. A mo-
ment brought them in sight of the old man, who lay prostrate on
the earth. His wife was bending over him, striving to loosen his
dress with her withered little hands,
“© Oh, come,’’ she pleaded, with a look of helpless distress; ‘* help
me untie this, or he will never ‘breathe again.”? -
It was all useless; the old man never did breathe again. A sin-
gle blow had smitten him down. They bore him into the house, but
the leaden weight of his body, the limp fail of his limbs, all revealed
the mournful truth too plainly. It was death —sudden and terrible
death, ©: :
- If there is an object on earth calculated: to call forth the best sym-
pathics of humanity, it isan ‘¢old' widow ??—a woman who’ has
' spent the spring, noon, and autumn of life, till it verges into winter,
with one man, the first love of her youth, the last love of her age —
the spring-time when love is a passionate sentiment, the winter-time
In old age men or women seldom resist trouble — it comes, and
they bow toit. Soit was with this widow : she uttered no complaints,
gaye way-to no wild outbreak of sorrow —‘* she was loncsome—
-very lonesome without him,?’ that was all her moan; but the raven
threads that lay in the snow of her hair, were lost in the general
whiteness before the funeral was over, and after that she began to __
bend a little, using his staff tolean on. It was mournful to see how
fondly her wrinkled hands would cling around the head, and the way
‘she had of resting her delicate chin upon it, exactly as he had done.
But even his staff, the stout prop of his waning manhood, was not
_ strong enough to keep that gentlo old woman from the grave. She
carricd it to the last, but one day it stood unused by the bed, which
was white and cold as the snow-drift through which they dug many
» feet before they could lay her by her husband’s side.