"Life is the hour that lies between
Earth and the heavenly spheres;
And merges like some tranquil dream
In love's immortal years."
Joy and sorrow, pain and peace, are the inevitable counterparts of nature, as essential to the completeness of life, as the different shades of coloring to a picture. If Mrs. Claremont furnished in herself an isolated illustration of the principle, that happiness, and not suffering, is the normal state of the soul, when health and vigor predominate in the physical, harmony in the intellectual and moral nature, and surrounding influences are favorable to their development, her daughter furnished another evidence, that under the most favorable circumstances for the existence of such a temperament, hereditary descent and early training had failed to do the work, and only by that law which has instituted suffering as the appointed agent for the perfection of the soul, could she reach the spiritual plane on which her mother rested. There was too much clashing of the elements, too much of the restless spirit of enquiry for the meek, sustaining eye of Faith, calmly to steer her course in such a complicated organization as Rosalind's.
It was not thus with Walter who resembled his mother. Nature seemed to have cast him in an even mould and bestowed on him her rarest gifts. Rosalind excelled in intellectual capacity; he, in intuitive knowledge. The truths others gained by reasoning, he knew by intuition. The triumphs others won by continued effort and stern self-denial, were but the natural unfolding of his own character.
Her sense of justice was very keen, arriving at results more through the intellect, than the moral perceptions. The reverse was true of Walter, whose reception of a truth preceded the argument. He desired proof to test his decision, not to help him form it; while she must trace all its logical results before accepting it as positive. Their influence over each other was mutually beneficial. She looked up to him with reverence for the readiness with which he complied with the wishes of his parents, while she was considering every possible motive that could induce them to desire any thing contrary to her own inclinations, not doubling its propriety more than he, but it was a necessity of her nature to understand the reason. She commanded his admiration for the noble qualities displayed in connection with her faults, and, in her sudden ebullitions of temper, he liked to trace those heroic elements through which she rose sublimely to a conquest over self, never deeming it any virtue in himself to do what cost him no effort. It was a most fortunate thing for her to be blessed with parents who had the time and ability to study her peculiar traits before attempting to control her. Conscious of her faults, more depended on their patience in her own process of correcting them, than in any direct reproof.
The autumn had been unusually mild, the woods assuming their variegated tints, independent of the frost-king, who had scarcely fulfilled his allotted tasks. The autumnal flowers, and many of the summer ones, more lavish than others of their blossoming season, were in full bloom until late in the month of October ere he touched them with a breath of his regal power.
To Rosalind's enthusiastic soul it was a season of intense enjoyment. Many were her rambles in the groves, those majestic temples of nature, where the lingering breath of summer wooed her to gentler melodies in fanning the fevered heat, that at times burst forth in youthful impetuosity from her ardent thirst for knowledge, which was now beginning to be slaked at its fountains.
Her father often accompanied her, watching with pleasure the indications that the impatient restlessness of her childhood was subsiding into the healthful activity of youth. A more tranquil, contented expression cast its radiance over her features which he hoped would, in time, entirely chase away the look of perplexity that cast its shadow over so much of her early years. The last walk they enjoyed together, at Rosalind's suggestion, they held a family pic-nic in the grove where her parents first met, which circumstance gave rise to many a merry joke between them, and to many questions by the children, to whom this was a very interesting piece of news. The air was as balmy as a day in June, and a gay time Walter and the squirrels had, of whom he was particularly fond, a fact which they seemed to divine. The birds were Rosalind's greater favorites who chirped about her as if to impart the joy they felt for this genial breath of summer air.
Mrs. Claremont lived over again the days of her girlhood, comparing their measure of happiness with that of maturer years, and arrived at the sage conclusion that the prevalent idea of the greatest amount of happiness being possible to young people, because free from care, was as erroneous as it would be to call the learner of the alphabet more enviable than the mathematician, or the astronomer, as the demand is less on the intellectual powers. She did not fail to comprehend, however, how much truth there is in this idea, for the majority of the world, whose overwhelming cares oppress their faculties to such a degree, that their minds have no opportunity to expand.
"Philosophizing yet," observed Mr. Claremont, as he and the children surprised her on a little mound where she was sitting, apparently lost in contemplation, her eyes fixed on the blue expanse of water in the distance.
"Was it thus you philosophized in the days of 'auld lang syne,'" said Walter with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "when father did a wooing go?"
"Impudence beyond measure," retorted Rosalind, kicking along the chestnut burrs at her feet, "when the frost comes in good—earnest, we'll have another stroll here after the chestnuts. I was going to say this has been the happiest day of my life, but had the good luck to remember that I should forfeit the long promised present you are to make me, if I will break off the habit of these extravagant comparisons."
"And you ought to have an extra one for this act of self-denial, for I came very near saying it myself," said he as he pulled her down into a hillock of dry leaves, covering her with kisses, and then held her by main strength until he had covered her with the leaves.
"Do look there," he suddenly shouted, permitting her-to raise her head, "I verily believe the senior couple imagine themselves young lovers again. See how cozily they are walking along, arm in arm, as if they composed the whole of the world, and nobody else was worth thinking of. I mean to just remind 'em there are two others," starting to run after them, when she pulled him back, and kept hold of him until they reached the house.
"I like to see them," said she, "and you need not be so jealous of a little cozy talk they are having. Perhaps they are considering how they shall train us m the way we should go," and both giving a bound, each ran a race to see who would reach the house first.
Before entering, she called his attention to a little root of candy tuft near the house, which had escaped the frost, as she supposed, from its sheltered situation, when she observed a curious expression in his face, and stopped abruptly.
"You didn't know I have covered that every cold night to see how long I could make you think it had defied the frost. I had a curiosity to know what kind of a judge of the weather a person would make who couldn't tell a plant from a weed, I am going to hand your name to the society on natural science for a diploma as an eminent naturalist."
"Now stop, Walter," closing his mouth with her hands, "just because I happened to pull up the rest of it, thinking it was a weed which it exactly resembles."
"As much as a lemon does an orange," said he with as much distinctness as she would let him. "I am proud of such a distinguished sister, for the important acquisition she will make to the science of Botany."
"Well, I don't care if you have covered it up, it looks so smiling when every thing around it is killed. Here it is the middle of November, and a plant in bloom out of doors, but it does not look half as interesting to me now, as when I thought it resisted the cold of its own strength. I had watched it with a great deal of interest."
"I knew that would spoil it for you, you are such a philosopher, but I love it all the more, it looks so grateful for my care," and he petted it as if it had been a conscious thing.
"There's no knowing but it might have been just so if you had not covered it."
"Then for the sake of testing it, and letting you have a chance to carry out your point, we'll let it run the risk of the next cold snap."
"It amuses me to hear you talk about the cold when we have not had any really cold weather this season. I should think you were about ninety."
"Well, candy tuft shall decide for us," said he, rising to go into the house.