The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1896-05-08
ROSES DIARY.
BY EMILY q. ". ROWE

June 80, 1832-Little brown diary
do you know that today is my birth
day ? am sixteen today. I can
hardly realize that am growing old
SO fast This morning when threw
open my shutters and the sweet June
sunshine and the breath OF roses came
pouring in, 1 thought to myself how
good it was to live, aud how glad
was that was born in June, ond that
my name is Rose. Rose Meredith
It's pretty name, isn't it, diary
dear ? wonder if shall always
keep it just so.
This morning, when went down to
breakfast, little mother met me with
a birthday kiss and a beautifully
bound copy of millions Poems" My
fathers gift, a gold thimblo, marked
"Rose," found under my napkin.
Bess gave me a dear little apron
trimmed in lace, and after breakfast
Kate Owen came across the lawn with
a huge bunch OF the loveliest creamiest
fragrant roses-just sixteen, one for
each year. Then Madame Carew
came, and had to take my music
lesson. After dinner, mamma, Bess
and drove to Hatfield and got back
just at tea time Tea in honor of the
day was served in the arbor, and after
it was over our neighbors, Kate and
Harry Owen, with a young college
friend of Harry's, Frederick Murchi-
son, came over, and we spent a very
pleasant evening with music and talk
ing. What happy, happy day it has
been, little diary. You just don't
know.
December 10, 1S34-How can I
write through my tears2 My sister
Bess is dead-my lovely, brown-eyed
sister, so beautiful in her young wom-
anhood. Only twenty-one-and she
was three years older than land al
ways such a dear, loving elder sister
to me. We buried her today in the
hard, cold, frozen earth, and tonight
the snow is falling silently and steadily
upon her grave.
Mother mourns in her own room
and refuses all comfort. She cannot
forget that her first born is sleeping
under blanket of snow.
1t seems as if we're all alone. Bess
and have always been so much to
one another. Harry Oven is quite
broken down with grief. They we're
to have been married in the spring,
but Bessie, my dear and only sister,
will never, never wear her bridal
robes. 1t almost seems as if, through
all space, she must hear my voice call
ing her to come back to me.
June 80, 1S37-Constance, Switzer-
land. Once more it is the anniver-
sary of my birth. At home the June
roses are all a-bloom but there is only
the June moonlight, the June silence,
and in my heart the June peace.
''The world is in June, and it ripples il
rhyme,
June, June, sweet heart Of life,
And own darling of Time"
1t is the happ1est night of my lifer
little diary. Shall l tell you why? II
is only the old, old story-old, yet to
me new andinexpressibly sweet Lake
Constance is a glittering sheet of sill
yer. / shall remember it so forever
and always, with the moonlight upor
the distant mountain tops.
Twenty-one to-day. just the same
age as our Bess was when she left vi
for a SUMMER land than this. Dear
dear Bess Was she as happy in hel
love, I wonder, as | am tonight? Blu
I must write the connected history o
it, mustn't I, diary carissima? I've
neglected youmost mercilessly of late
but then you know well, little book
you do know well, don't you? Tw,
years since mamma and came abroad