The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1889-03-29
POOR LITTLE EMILY,
The History of a Prudent
Marriage.
By MISS AIULOCK.
CHAPTER V

CHAPTER
People do break their hearts sometimes.
Not very often, for q large proportion have
really no hearts to break; aud few who
nave them have also that stern power of
endurance, which, if they only have
strength to live through the FIRST shock.
viii enable them still to live on-liye mo-
ply, heroicaliy, until they come to expert
ence the mysterious internal force of repa.
ratleaTyhiehs heayep 1hsa messifullX ias
parted TO every sound body aud healtn1fy
constituted mind; which turns evil into
good, and transmutes dull misery into that
active battling with sorrow which in time
produces deeper peace than even hap
piness. -.
But here and there are others, like poor
Emily Dowerbank, gifted with strong per-
sistency of loving, and almost no other
strength-no other persistency in anything;
sweet, gentle, sensitive souls; climbing
plants, who, il they find prop to cling to.
bloom bounteously oil their days; but,
finding no prop, or being rudely torn from
1t, slip silently to the earth, where they
soon witber away, and have no use nor
beauty in their lives ever after. This may
not be noticeable outside; the result may
be attributed 10 many accidental external
causes worldly misfortune, constitutional
feebloness, and 80 on, but the real cause
is-their hearts are broken. Why 1t
should be SO why, above all, Providence
should allow it-should permit the gentle
s weak ones to succumb to the bad strong
ones, aud the virtuous to be sacrificed to
the vicious - the unBelfsh and much
enduring to those who have neither tender
ness nor generosity lis mystery that
lenvH it with Him who, dying. prayed TO
His Father as Emily Bowerbank tried to
pray to the Father in heaven, whenever
Che thought of her own father, "Forgiye
them, they know not whatthey do"
Nevertheless, her heart was broken, and
che know it. She recovered from her
fever, and by degrees resumed almost her
former place in her husbands household,
though not in general society; she was
quite incapable Of that, and, besides, dur
ing her tedious convalescence, Sir John
had got into habit Of going to his dinner
parties alone. She was, to all appearance,
quite we'll; still she never again took o firm
hold on life, never was heard to talk Of the
future, or to mako any plans beyond tho
month, or the week, and then gradually :
SO gradually that no one perceived it-noi
even beyond the day.
She was not in consumption, for the
doctor found no disease in the lungs; il
was more what the country people call "a
waste"-that is, gradual sinking OF oil
the powers Of the body, and sometimes
even of the mind; until mental griefs
cease TO wound, and Of bodily suffering
except wcarlness and feebleness, there IL
absolutely none. Not painful death tc
die. esnecially when Surrounded by nil Tho
iuxuries that wealth or kindly care coulG
hastow--evarythino In short. except tht
one thino--the one amulet or iife. whici
had bean taken away from hsr.
People do not recognize half clearl,
enough the truth that God would not hay,
created such n thing as mutual love. end
ing in marriage, had he not meant it to b,