Page:Letters of Life.djvu/333

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LAPSE OF YEARS.
321

ing to our present abode, have been transferred from my heart's casket to sparkle in the Redeemer's crown. One year and two months had scarcely passed away since our residence here, when my father, who retained an active step, a florid complexion, and bright hair unmingled with a thread of silver, died at the age of eighty-seven. He had never known sickness, save that single day and night when cholera-morbus laid him by her side, whom for five years he had mourned.

Next, my only son, my faded hope—apparently of an excellent constitution—fell, like a rootless flower, the victim of a quick consumption, while a student in college, in the bloom of nineteen.

Four years and a half after his death, my husband, being in comfortable health, though not entirely free from infirmities, was prostrated by a sudden stroke of apoplexy at the age of seventy-six. No previous confinement had precluded his attention to his professional business. Morning and noon of his last day on earth found him as usual at his store, from whence he walked home, but at the setting of the sun entered on that glorious life which hath no end.

Two years and a half had elapsed after his departure, when the oldest and only remaining son yielded, at the age of forty-five, to a consumption with which he had for some years contended, and probably inherited from his beautiful mother. Do not these glorified ones,