Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1851-11-25
miscellaneous.
From the Boston Oiice Brunch.
RESTORED AFFECTION.
BY MRS. NJ. A. DENIs0N.

You don't love my mother said little
Ellen Crosby, slowly rctreating from her faith
or, with her hands behind her, and her lips
quivering as she spoke.
What do you mean, pet@ he exclaimed,
springing after her, and drawing be resist
ing form towards him; that is very strange
thing for little girl to say; what put it into
your head that father don't love motherY he
continued smoothing back the soft hair from
her white forehead and looking earnestly into
her downcast eyes.
Because, when mamma wen. away from
the table, you spoke cross, and said she was
always sick, and she has got hcadace, ad
dcd the child earnestly, while the tears trick
beside her all the afternoon, and rubbing her
forehead; and she is sick and tired very Of
ten, and you never tell Ler you are sorry and
kiss her as you do me-
Charles Crosby drew bis little girl closer to
his bosom. Her artess words had fallen like
fire upon bis heart. He felt instantly that
he had spoken harshly mere than once to the
gentle being who had never given him an
unkind word. Seven years of his welded
life had passed calmly and fectly; being
young and most impulsive creature when be
married, he could hardly appreciate the deep
holy love which his sweet bride treasured for
him and him only. After the romance of the
affair, as it seemed to him, had settled into
quiet perhaps monotonous reality, his rest
less spirit yearned for some fresh novelty
To spend the evening hours between his wife
and infant child, whose beautiful face gleam-
ed like rosebud upon the white pillow in
her little wicker basket cradle, became tire
some to him. He wished his Ellen had more
yivacity, more briliancy forgetting that these
might accompany yariableness of tempera-
ament that would truly have made his home
unhappy.
Ellen was most excellent wife hers was
that inward purity which stamps upon the
features loneliness far beyond mere beauty !;
nobody hesitated to call her handsome; her
ways were winning, her form slight and fra
gile; with all she had so much prudence, and
so good manager, that from the time of his
marriage, Charles Crosby had been accumu-
lating riches. But she needed much affection,
and much care; ; she was delicate and so SEN
stive that word of rcproach from one she
esteemed, would cause almost serious illness
The language of her full blue eyes, as they
were sometimes fixed upon the noble face of
her husband, was Love me oh how yearn
for your full unrcstrained love : then they
would fall to the floor while the chilling con-
seriousness that he was not toward her in
manners as he had once been-and oh she
feared, not in heart-wonld send an icy thrill
through every fibre of her frame. OF late,
Charles Crosby had become an alien to his
home until the midnight hour; he had found,
as he thought, choice and congenial spirits,
and with them the spirit of wo.' that is the
spirit of wine But alas his fine manners
were disappearing; his home was not an
earthly paradise to him now--he had grown
very cold and worldly; indeed he knew not
the extent of the change himself
He worshipped his lovely child and called
her by the sweet names of fairy. and pet
darling she was indeed such an one as few
very few parents are blest with; a child of
neither ordinary beauty or intellect and but
for Der mothers judicious care and teaching,
her powerful mind might have too swiftly ex
banded, and ripened quicker than the growth
Of this world will allow, unless the exotic is to
be transplanted into heaven.
Charles Crosby sat with his cheek resting
upon little Ellen's head; the dear child once
or twice unconsciously sighed, and these signs
were arrows to the wounded spirit of the faith
or. -r.ts.sf OIL r t.
Darling, you speak strangely, he said, af-
ter long pause, during which conscience