Year: 1868

nave always Deeu Ouultn DrOtueIs de heaie, GA
cept for one brief space. We are in the wholesale
dry goods line, as our father was before u.s. Whel
he died he left us his store and his business, ant
"Smith Brothers took the place Of the old sign
Jonathan Smith"


We were not young when our father departed
this life. I, Absalom, was thirty-6ve, and m!
brother Abijah was thirty-three. Our mother dice
when we were children and her last charge, as they
say in novels, was that we should love each other
and try to console father. We can remember hel
very distinctly, both of us. She was fair little
woman, with pale face and gentle eyes, OF sor
of a brownish blue. Her voice was very sweet anc
low, and she loved us as no one will ever love III
again. To this day can recall her cooing, mur
mnrous intonations, as she called us by mother
thousand endearing names; the warm clasp OF hel
soft arms: the sweetness of her smiles the delica
cy of her beauty. So can Abijah. tits not strange
that after her death, as our lives expanded from
boyhood toward manhood, our mother, as we re-
member her, became to our dreaming fancies the
type of all that was lovely in woman. The future
wife, of whom we both dreamed, was little, fan
creature, with brownish blue eyes, sweet voice, and
tender smile. We used to talk about her freely
with each other, and the one who found his mate
first was to marry and take his brother to live with
him.


It was queer life which We led, all through our
bovhood and young manhood. The servants who
had lived with us at my fathers death, two staid,
church going spinsters, all lines and angels and
grew haired servingman who looked like the very
incarnation of the family respectability. Besides
these we had no housekeeper. My father did not
like O stranger about the house, and himself be-
slowed upon the domestic affairs the slight amount
of supervision necessary, until became old enough
to relieve him. We went to school till we were
shy boys, and besides each other made no intimate
friends


When we were sixteen our father took US into
his store. This pleased US vastly better than
longer school life. We were contemplative, rather
than communicative, and we used to like to sit
when the days work was over, and look from an
upper window down the harbor and watch the ships
coming home, bearing to temperate New England
oriental musks and spices and essences; shawls ano
robes wrought with many strange eastern device
hints of acacias and Indian palms and dusky wo'
men rowing under them. Ispeak for us both; oul
tastes were as one taste; what one liked the Other
liked also. We used to associate the gentle woman
of our dreams with all our oriental fancies. She
should wear the bright-hued silks; fold her light
figure in the quaint, rich shawls; bear the odor o
the spiees in her soft hair and the folds of her gar
ments.


But when my father died and we got along into
our thirties, we wereno nearerth dream wife than
in our boyhood. We saw no company save the
people we met in our business. Year in an yeal
out, no female footsteps lighter or quicker thar
James and Hepsibah' s ever wandered up and dowr
the stairs in and out of the rooms of our spacious
old.fashioned house. We dreamed of the future
still, with the shy tenderness of our boyhood. We
did not at all realize that We were growing old
growing away from the possibilities Of youth anc
beauty and tenderness. Our life had been so quiet
so barren of events that it seemed short unconsci
GUS of the hostages time was leaving with US IN the
shape of gray hairs and wrinkles.


It was sudden shock, rather than bitter grief
when our father died. His heart had been buried
twenty-five years ago, in the grave of our mother
and, since that time, though kind and just to all
there had been no sun to melt for him the ice O
lifes long winter. We love him. There was {
saddenng sense of loss and absence when we looked
at his vacant chair at home, or in his counting
room, when we saw 'Smith Brothers on thesign
in place of the honored name which had hung there
for forty years. but there was none of the anguish
ofdesolation which rends the heart when one il
taken whom we loved, who loved us.


s'It would not have been right to marry while
father lived" I said to Abijah one evening, as VI
sat by the library fire. ut would have panied hin
to bring wife home here where mother died. Blu
now"


sYes, / think it is time now, brother Absalom
but of course we must wait till our year Of mourn
ing is over. ~


Our eyes met each other, and we smiled. W.
made no confessions in words, but the truth CAM
home to us both that We had lived 80 long out
the world, it would be work Of more magnitude
than we had realized to go into society and choos
the household angel we both coveted.


And so it went on for another year-the hous
ouiet and silent as ever; the old servants; ant
"Smith Brothers, growing old together Gu
father had been dead something over twelv
month when there came to US letter superscribe'
in female hand 1t was very unusual event
and we speculated little as to its possible origi
before we opened it. 1t proved to be from lad
ofwhom we had often heard as our mothers mos
intimate friend This was what it said:


''I write to you, gentlemen, as surely Mar
Chelmsford may feel privileged to write to tn
children of Margaret Smith. Your mother and
loved each other with tenderness deeper tha
most sisters know All that one woman could haV
done or ventured for another she would have don
for me, or for her. Since she died have see
neither of you, but remember the promise Of you
boyhood You, Absalom, hadyo mother smile
and you, Abijah, your mothers kindly eyes.
will believe that you both inherit your mother
tender heart At any rate this is my only hope
Under heaven have nowhere else to turn. ar
dying in strange place, of slow decline, going t
ioin my husband. have no near friends or klr
dred to look to-only you I am not harrassed b
any anxieties for myself My soul is at rest, for
know in whom have believed. have propert
enough to make my last days comfortable, and
leave provision for my only child, my daughte
Margaret, who was named for your mother. 1t
in her behalf that appeal to you. She is nc
much over twenty, for was not married till lat
in life, some years after your mother died. Sh
has q gentle, loving nature, which, save at he
fathers death, has never yet been subjected to an
of the harsh discipline of life 1t is from this tina
bep Won to save her. She will not suffer from an
bodily wants, but do not let her soul starve. Don
let her feel herself friendess, lonely and loveless
Efa Rv this time one or both of you must surel