Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/292

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
290
ETHEL CHURCHILL.

a name breathed amid his dreams, but that name was not mine.

My father, I charge you with the care of his future happiness: think that it is the last, the dearest wish of your child. In the mutual affection between you and my husband, I see the resource of your old age. His ties will become yours, and a new growth of kindly interests and warm affections will spring up under the shadow of the old. If, as I sometimes hope, the departed spirit is permitted to retain in another world those affections which made its heaven on earth, how tenderly will I watch over you!

My beloved father, our parting is but for a season. Not in vain have these divine words been spoken, whose comfort is with me even now. I die in their glorious faith, and in their cheering hope. If I die, as I trust to do, watching the faces that I love to the last, these words shall be my latest gift to you, my father; they will bring their own power.