North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1864-01-27

physician. My tolls and studies will not
| detail to you. 1t is, perhaps, enough, to say
| that, with Gods blessing, and the little
heritage my parents LETT me, which was
| barely enough, with constant economy, to
! feed and clothe and educate me, | have sue
ceeded even beyond my most sangrine hopes.
Now, while | am firmly treading the high
road to fortune, walk, also, in path of use
fulness. When | die, Stella, God keeping
me, it shall not be said have lived in vain
that the world is no better for my having
lived in it.
'ln many, in most respects, NY life has
been an uneventful one. Yet there is a por
ton of it may interest you. have been, as
| before told you, alone since my mothers
death--shut out from all those social bonds
that link families and hearts together-
! More acutely have felt this desoation when
in the midst of a crowded city. Where all
around lie seemed TO have friends or kindred
| had none. You Stella, blessed as you have
been by the common, yet sacred associations
| of home, cannot Imagine the desoIate isolation
from my kind that for years has darkened
my ife.-But the human soul, however soli-
tary, will find fer itself companions. Mine,
| at first solely, and always in greater or less
| degree, were books. But time came when
my heart took 10 itself another companion.-
What human heart has not done so in some
period Ofits existence"
Did Horace perceive the nervous tremor
that, tor moment, only, agtated his audi
tor! Perhaps not, for he did not pause or
! hesitate in his narration.
while | was pursuing my studies with
DR.. Stowe, in the city, | used daily to see a
fair, young schoolgirl pass my window
That she was schoolgirl knew by the
hours in which she regularly passed up and
down the street, by her books, some of which
she always had with her, and by the gay
companions that often went back and forth
with her. | knew nothing about who she
was, what her name, or where her home
| scarcely cared to knoW-at first. 1t was
enough to know that III the morning and in
the afternoon, like stray ray of sunshine,
she would fit by my window-enough to re
| vel in my dreams of this new divinity, at
whose shrine my very soul bowed to do hon.
! age. 1t was my mothers smile in her face
that so rveted my gaxe on that morning
wi Ell first beheld her; and each day as I
watched COR her advent, she seemed to me
the visible embodyment OF ny uother's gen.
tie spirit. Do you wonder, Stella, that 7
thought OF her only in vague, wiId.dreams? =
| that the far apparItion was never spoken IF
to those around me? that never took any
steps to ascertain aught concerning her, but
dreamed on bIindy, like one enchanted? If
you wonder, you have never dreamed
Stella drew back still further into the
shadowy recsses of the window, but neither
sigh nor sttied sob escaped her. Had Hor-
aces listener been a spirit she could not
have been more noiseless.
" AT length my divinity came no more. |
watched for her mornings-she might be late
to school. Late or early she never came. |
watched for her afternoons-possibly had
missed her IN the crowd that iostled BY nv
window. Al, no-she was in the crowd no
more. Slowly, reluctantly, admitted the
| fact-she was gone. I might never see her
again. Then the light went out of my heart
| From that time, was like the father of Gin
erva, wandering as IN search Of something [
could not find. I, indeed pursued my stud
les and made my daily round Of calls on va
rious patients, but thro' all this was rather
like an automaton than living scntent being.
"But my sun rose again. Oh what cio.
rious morning was that to my lonely, stricken
heart! This was the manner Of lis daWning.
DR.. Stowe changed his Office to more GEN.
tral portion of the city for convenience,
too, changed my lodging to place near his
new Office. One day I had occasion to return
to my room at an hour when usually was
engaged at the Office and as l approached the
front entrance, my divinity issued therefrem
There was the same smile upon her lip, the
! same unspeakable expression in her eve
that had graced my mothers when she
used to caress me, her child, with looks and
words of tenderness. I started grew almost
dizzy with emotion as the vision fitted by
me, and was lost among the crowd; then |
rushed forward through the doorway and up
to my room utterly overwhelmed with the
new thoughts that struggled in my heart
| Did she really live within the same dwelling
that sheltered me Was it possible that I
was breathing the same atmosphere with
her that one roof nightly covered us both
Oh, what blessedness was in the thought
Who could propecy what full fruition of
earthly hopes the boundless future should
not bring to me? Aye, even to poor lonely,
| desolate me-"
"Again for weeks did not see her. The
house in which hired solitary room was