But as her father was soon after
struck with palsy, she told her lover they must wait a little while, for
her first duty must be to the feeble old man. But the impatient swain
went off and pinned himself to the flightiest little humming-bird in all
Soitgoes, and in a month was married, having a long life before him for
bitterness and repentance. After the father died, Kindly remained at
home; and when Nathan returned, years after, they made one brotherly and
sisterly household out of what might else have gladdened two connubial
homes. "Not every bud becomes a flower."
Uncle Nathan sat there, his locket in his hand, looking into the fire;
and as the wind roared in the chimney, and the brands crackled and
snapped, he thought he saw faces in the fire; and when the sparks rose
up in a little cloud, which the country children call "the people coming
out of the meeting-house," he thought he saw faces in the fire; they
seemed to take the form of the boys and girls as he had lately seen them
rushing out of the Union School-house, which held all the children
in the village; and as he recognized one after the other, he began
to wonder and conjecture what would be the history of this or that
particular child.
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