The father still seemed to
struggle with his feelings, and to comfort himself with the
assurance that the dead are blessed which die in the Lord; but
the mother only thought of her child as a flower of the field cut
down and withered in the midst of its sweetness; she was like
Rachel, "mourning over her children, and would not be comforted."
On returning to the inn I learnt the whole story of the deceased.
It was a simple one, and such as has often been told. She had
been the beauty and pride of the village. Her father had once
been an opulent farmer, but was reduced in circumstances. This
was an only child, and brought up entirely at home in the
simplicity of rural life. She had been the pupil of the village
pastor, the favorite lamb of his little flock. The good man
watched over her education with paternal care; it was limited and
suitable to the sphere in which she was to move, for he only
sought to make her an ornament to her station in life, not to
raise her above it. The tenderness and indulgence of her parents
and the exemption from all ordinary occupations had fostered a
natural grace and delicacy of character that accorded with the
fragile loveliness of her form. She appeared like some tender
plant of the garden blooming accidentally amid the hardier
natives of the fields.
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