Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1861-04-26

my waywardness, as one bears with the
faults of an irresponsible child. Perhaps
he never lost his faith in my ultimate re-
generation.
l think Laura suffered beyond what l
had supposed child's capacity for purely
mental suffering. The disappointment to
her was most cruel. She had longed all
her little life for a mother to love her as
she had seen other children loved. For
many weeks before l came she had been
told that she was to have what she most
new mamma, all to herself.
She had found in me less affection than
she would have receive from a governess
or housckeeper. l knew all this, l had
never been deliberately cruel before, but l
was now. All Of Laura's gay vivacity
was gone. She seemed all the time fear.
full of displeasing me. She moved and
spoke in slow. quiet way, that l could
see was exquisitely painful to her father
to behold. do not know how it was that
his love for me was not utterly quenched,
his patience all worn out. Perhaps he
thought was not we'll, and that the sweet
new conner for whom he hoped, would heal
my nature of its pride, and pain, and pas
sion. u"
At last my day of trial dawned. There
were many hours Of terrible suffering,
during which my husband hovered over
me, almost in despair, revealing the depth
and fullness of his love as l had never d.
vined it before. l lived, but the baby
they laid upon my bosom was dead. No
faintest thrill Of life shivered those deli
cate limbs--no pulse futtered in the tiny
wrist-no heartbeat stirred the little, still
breast. The delicate, blue-veined eyelids
would never lift; the lily-bud mouth
never open. The cold, dead thing was
all. Where was the soul? Would they
treat it tenderly in the country of spirits
that soul, so young, 50 tender, going
out alone into the infinite dark! Had
God measured out to me such measure as
l had measured, and to my cry for bread
given stone?
My husband could not fully share my
feelings. He was disappointed, it is true,
but in his thankfulness for my spared life
he had little room for grief 1t was not
his first child--the loss could not be to
him what it was to me.
had been ill three days, when, one
morning, my nurse went out for a few mo-
ments, leaving the door open. I lay there
with closed eyes, my heart full of bitter,
rcbcllious grief. heard little footsteps
crossing the room very softly. | knew
Laura had come in. l did not move. ]
wished her to think / was asleep. | felt
that could not bear to speak to her then.
She came to the bedside and looked at me
for moment, then she knelt down and
murmured little prayer, whose words
-. Ill oxrorJ
"Oh, Father up in Heaven, please let
dear new mamma get better, and make
her love little Laura"
/ believe, since that hour, there may bt
sudden conversions--single moments
which change the whole tone and current
of life. Mine was changed then.
opened my eyes, my arms, my heart.
"Come up, here, little daughter"
whispered, with such tenderness as she
never had heard in my voice before.
She crept up beside me, and | drew hel
to my bosom--the mothers loving bosom
to her forevermore. For a few moments
l wcpt over her SILENTLY could not hell
it. Then l told her my sorrow.
Laura" said I, God gave me LITTLE
daughter, and the same hour He gave it
He took it from me. Your mother ant
my baby are both in heaven will you b
my little girl on earth, in place Of th'
dead 2"
Hcr eyes frightened. She cried eager
ly, plaintively:
"Oh, l love you, new mamma, al
ways did! Will you love me, too, ant
let me be your little girl" a.
"Forever, my darling, whom God ha
given me-" "A a'',4
When my husband came in haitian