Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1874-02-28
CHAPTER TX.

urged AlWyn to pay the visit. Ock-
ham was beautiful place. Sir
(his former patron, who was still as
much friend to him as a shallow, SEN
t1mental, fashionable litteratear can be-
eagerly pressed him to go. He had been
tolllng at that insurance Office early and
late, without any holiday, for seven
years; except that once a year, so long
as Mr.. and Mrs. Blair lived, he used to
go down to the farm, generally in the
winter time. But that stay was not in
the original, not in the corrupted and
pleasurable sense-a keeping of holy
day.
We always came up to London better
and calmer after this visit-not ex-
actly to his wife's grave, for we both
held that the revis;ting ana mourning
over graves is aneedless, almost a sim
full thing to those who believe in the
immortality and perpetual presence of
the beloved lost-but to the places sane
titled by Marjory's living presence, and
Marjory's love.
nature is human nature; and Gods
providence allows not that there should
ever be in any human heart continual
unhealed wound.
The snowdrops of seven winters had
grown over all that was mortal of Mar
iory and her little babe. The widower,
though never forgetting either, lived on
calmly and was comforted.
was glad when he at last consented
to mingle again for brief season with
the circle to which he had once brightly
belonged, and to revisit Ockham Tower.
There was some slight hustle of prep
aration, for his habits had become sim
pie even to homeliness. As delicately
as could started the question whether
ne should not put off his deep mourn
ing, which he had worn all these years.
But he absolutely refused.
However, handsome man never
looks so well as in black, and my BROTH
er was very handsome man still. His
voice had graver tone-his face was
somewhat sharper--with a slight bald
ness over the forehead, Every trace of
boyish sentimentalism had become alb
sorbed in the maturing of middle age.
You would hardly recognize the ALVIN
Reid of former days, save from those
gentle manners which had won the
heart of poor Marjory Blair.
l admired him very much myself, and
thought it probable that other women
would do the same.
While was packing his portmanteau,
he said, hurrledly:
Oio~i AoseSs wv YOU tuihh tiIic iS Quitc
safe?'
He showed me the wedding-ring-
hers, which he always carried at his
watch-chain, it being too small for any
of his fingers.
1T is worn thin, you see. am afraid
Of losing it,
You had better give it to me to keep
until you come back
took it. 1t lies in my desk now,
My brothers letter from Ockham
Tower were almost like his letters of ten
years ago. Certainly in description, in
humor, in the rare and exquisite tact
which, without effort, says precisely
what the recipient of the epistle likes to
hear, ] never knew correspondent like
Alwyn. His were not Show letters,
written as If the author were fully con-
scious that every line was, or deserved
to be preserved in adamantine record for
the editication of posterity; nor were
they those formal, cold documents,
very clever and good people sometimes
write-mummied epistles, with no more
of the writer's true soul In them than
there is in the body of a defunct Egyp-
tian. No Alwyn was the prince of cor
respondents. He wrote, not for him.
self, but from himself to you. Wrote,
because he loved you, and liked to