"The blue
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer night collected still to make
The morning precious: Beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake?"
What is it Rosa, makes thy eye so bright, and thy step so light? Has some ministering spirit been whispering to thy troubled soul some sweet message of peace and love? Ah yes, it is even so, but be not too sanguine Rosalind; perhaps it is only the delusive calm that precedes a still greater struggle, and it may be,—the last.
Who that has trod the mourner's path, has not felt gleams of God's own sunlight bursting through some overcharged cloud of despondency and despair, as if to reveal a glimpse of the blessed future beyond, and nerve the soul for a sterner conflict?
Such was the experience of Rosalind, as she rose early one lovely June morning and sauntered down the shaded avenue to the gate, which commanded a full view of the Connecticut sporting with the sunbeams.
The sky was cloudless, the air soft and breezy, the birds carolled their joyous notes from the tree-tops overhead, and she looked upward to that far off world whither her father had gone, when distance
