our burdens of grief and disappointment, have wept our tears and endured our agonies, have cherished our hopes and aimed at our mark; impressing too a conviction that others will yet find strength and courage, faith and fruition, from balmy words welling up from a loving heart, and dropping like diamonds from sweet sympathizing lips! Lone dwellers with nature are we—afar from tower and town, from noise and bustle and business; with forest and lake, hill and village for our wild landscape, with needle and books, music and flowers for society, through the long winter without a “Midnight Sun.” Lights that have burned around the hearthstone have been here and there put out. A silvery head has lately gone from its “old arm-chair” to heaven. Alas! alas! in what Home will you not find one ever vacant chair? Hedvig too has gone, to make a heaven in a newly consecrated household; and sometimes we, the small remnant, repine for a little while, but anon, we are cheered, for we look joyfully onward and aloft, awaiting a sure reunion day; and sweet words, which your dear pen has traced, teach us lessons of Life, of inner, deeper, spiritual Life, whose peace and repose, like a broad still river, sweeps along until it is lost in the ocean depths of Eternity and God!
Yes, you have made blessed such homes as ours. Come to them, and make them lighter and lovelier, by starting an echo of your own human voice, and a reflection of your own human smile, and we will love you better—and for ever!
