Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1856-11-06


Time passed on, and death and change told
Of its lapse among the family at Langley Hall
Five years after the events above related, Mr.
Langley died, and was followed to the grave
shortly afterwards by his wife Of their two
soms, the eldest was rising into good practice
1T the bar the younger had become attaese
to foreign embassy The third daughter was
married, and living at the family seat of her
husband, in Scotland Mr.. and Mrs. Streat-
field had children of their own now to occupy
their time and absorb their care. The career
Of life was over for some, the purpose of life
had altered for others Jane Langley alone
still remained unchanged
She now lived entirely with her aunt. At
intervals, as their worldly duties and worldly
avocatons permitted them, the other members
of the family, or one or two intimate friends,
came to the house. Offers of marriage were
made to her, but were all declined.
The first, last love of her girlish days, ahan-
doned as hope and crushed as passion, liv-
ny only as quiet grief, as u pure remembrance
still kept its watch as guardian and defender
over her heart. Yeats passed on and worked
no change in the sad uniformity of her life,
until the death of her aunt left her mistress of
the house in which she had hitherto been a
guest. Then it was observed that she made
fewer and fewer efforts to vary the tenor other
existence, TO forget her old remembrances for
| awhile in the society Of others Such invita-.
tions as reached her from relations and friends
| were more more frequently declined than ac-
! cepted. She was growing old herself now
and with each advancing year the busy pageant
of the outer world presented less and less that
could attract her eye.
| So she began to surround herself in her
solitude, with the favorte books that she
had studied, with the favorite music that
! she had played, in the days of her hopes and
her happiness. Everything that was assoca
ted, however slightly, with that past period
now acquired character of inestmable value
in her eyes, as aiding her mind to seclude it.
self more and more strictly in the sanctuary OF
its early recollections Was it weakness in
her to live thus to abandon the world and the
worlds interests as one who had no hope OF
part in either? Had she earned the right, by
the magnitude and resolution of her sacrifice,
thus to indulge in the sad luxury of fruitless
remembrance Who shall say-who shall
presume to decide that cannot think you with
her thoughts, and look back with her recollec-
tons
Thus she lived-alone, and yet not lonely
without hope, but with no despair; separate
and apart from the world around her, except
when she approached it by her charities to the
poor, and her succor to the afflicted by her
occasional interviews with the surviving mem.
berS of her family and few old friends, when
they sought her in her calm retreat ; and by
little presents which she constantly sent to
brothers and sisters children, who worshipped
as their invisible good genius, {" the kind lady
whom most of them had never seen Such was
her existence throughout the closing years OF
her life, such did it contipue-calm and blame
less-to the last