God will reward all your
kindness to the orphan children of your friends." The excellent
divine, a man who lived more for others than for himself, made the
required promises, and the soul of my mother took its flight in peace.
Neither my sister nor myself grieved as deeply for the loss of this
last of our parents, as we did for that of the first. We had both
seen so many instances of her devout goodness, had been witnesses of
so great a triumph of her faith as to feel an intimate, though silent,
persuasion that her death was merely a passage to a better state of
existence--that it seemed selfish to regret. Still, we wept and
mourned, even while, in one sense, I think we rejoiced. She was
relieved from, much bodily suffering, and I remember, when I went to
take a last look at her beloved face, that I gazed on its calm
serenity with a feeling akin to exultation, as I recollected that pain
could no longer exercise dominion over her frame, and that her spirit
was then dwelling in bliss. Bitter regrets came later, it is true,
and these were fully shared--nay, more than shared--by Grace.
After the death of my father, I had never bethought me of the manner
in which he had disposed of his property. I heard something said of
his will, and gleaned a little, accidentally, of the forms that had
been gone through in proving the instrument, and of obtaining its
probate.
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