It was a solemn and a holy hour;
the night closed in about us with unutterable tenderness; the summer
stars shed down their radiant beams.
The vesper-song of some invisible bird called me into the garden, and
I walked there alone. Did I walk utterly alone? A spirit was with me.
I wandered out to the gate and drew my portmanteau from its
hiding-place: I placed my hand upon the latch; the gate swung easily,
but I paused a moment. Shall I go or shall I stay? asked my heart:
"Stay," said the spirit that was with me. I returned to the house and
joined in the evening meal: sorrow sat at the board with us, but not a
hopeless sorrow. The magnetism of her touch had not yet left that
home: it never need, it never will leave it, for it is treasured
there. Her piano was closed, and I would not open it: any harmony
would have been too harsh for the hallowed silence of the place. Her
books, her pictures, her dainty needlework, _her words_--all that had
been a part of her life--still lived, though she had left us.
Those were sweet days to me. Emma and I went side by side to the old
haunts--to most of them, but not all, for there were some I cared no
longer to revisit. Before we had compassed the narrow limits of
Heartsease I began to wonder if there was a stone left that would give
back to me the impression of my early days: they all told another
story now, and most of them a sad one.
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