The little grave was soon filled up, and you hardly knew
that the turf had been disturbed beneath which she lay. The afternoon
service consisted but of a prayer--for he who ministered, had loved her
with love unspeakable--and, though an old grey-haired man, all the time
he prayed he wept. In the sobbing kirk her parents were sitting, but no
one looked at them--and when the congregation rose to go, there they
remained sitting--and an hour afterwards, came out again into the open
air--and parting with their pastor at the gate, walked away to their
hut, overshadowed with the blessing of a thousand prayers!
And did her parents, soon after she was buried, die of broken hearts,
or pine away disconsolately to their graves?--Think not that they, who
were Christians indeed, could be guilty of such ingratitude. "The Lord
giveth, and the Lord taketh away--blessed be the name of the Lord!" were
the first words they had spoken by that bedside; during many, many long
years of weal or woe, duly every morning and night, these same blessed
words did they utter when on their knees together in prayer--and many
a thousand times besides, when they were apart, she in her silent hut,
and he on the hill--neither of them unhappy in their solitude, though
never again, perhaps, was his countenance so cheerful as of yore--and
though often suddenly amidst mirth or sunshine, her eyes were seen
to overflow! Happy had they been--as we mortal beings ever can be
happy--during many pleasant years of wedded life before she had been
born.
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