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THE
LADY'S
BOO
Written for the Lady's Book. THE
PORTRAIT .
Few parts of a public exhibition of paintings tures of which were regular, but grief and its reare of less general interest than those which are cent indulgence were too conspicuous for beauty. marked on the catalogue, " Portrait of a Lady" When the female had departed , I rose , and , -" Portrait of a Gentleman"-and this too, anxious to know whose manes were blessed with though SULLY or NEAGLE should have laid the the tears of such a mourner, I read the headcolours on the canvass. Perhaps " the Portrait" stone ; and, as I was about to pass on, I discoverwhich fronts this article, will of itself attract lited at the side of the grave a small white objecttle attention beyond what is due the successful taking it up, I saw that it was a miniature PORexertion of the artists : though to me, there are TRAIT of the female who had just left the place ; circumstances connected therewith, which call it was without a frame, having apparently been up mournful reflections whenever my eye rests set as an obverse to that which the original had upon it. rec ently so passionately kissed. Death had taken from me an only child- the My first intention was to hasten out of the solitary lab of my bosom-them nurstling whereyard, and restore the portrait to its owner if I with I solaced misfortune, and upon which I could find her . But recollecting that such a rebuilt the ideal fabric of earthly comfort--Time stor ation would be painful to both of us; as conconv tempers grief, and the entual usages of soveying to her the assurance that I had been witciety forbid its protracted indulgence. But I was ness ofher emotion , and certain that I could aswont to sit upon the little mound that had been certain her residence by inquiring as to the indiraised over him, and indulge in feelings , which vidual at whose grave she had come to weep , I those who have not lost an only child cannot deferred until a more suitable opportunity the know, and which those who have , will allow are execution of my design. undefinable . It is not the absorbsion of grief -it is not the indulgence of tears-they are If the spirit, separated from the gross fetters of flesh, is allowed to look down upon the things of the common consequences of common deprilife, to mingle an unobserved spectator in scenes vations. But to kneel down upon the swellwhere once it had joy as an actor ; if it is touched ing hillock, to shut out the world and all its painwith human sympathy , and is allowed to rejoice ful, sickening realities, to look through the incrustation of this life , and in the thronged popuin the fond devotion of those with whom it sojourned in mortality ; if it can feel the sensations lation of the grave ; to mingle with them, join that belong to this world, how blest must have spirit to spirit, to press again to the widowed bobeen the disembodied spirit of WORTHINGTON in som the object of its joy ; to throw back the clustering locks, and plant a kiss on the polished forethe pure, the heart- engendered sigh that AMELIA head of the beloved ; to inhale once more from had breathed over his grave. All that there is his lip the fragrant breath ; to feel him nestling pure in affection ; all that there is sincere in woto the bosom , to clasp him closer and closer to man's deep, undying devotion ; all that there is the heart, and not once loose the melancholy rich in the breathings of her undivided love ; all consciousness that he is not there. To find the that is holy in the firstlings of her heart's deep soul, while in the enjoyment of its ideal bliss , yearnings, were his in offering ; and that gift, alive to the dread reality-and uttering, from the laid on his grave with such an incense, must consciousness of its self- deception , the language have been acceptable even to one that asks not . from earth its means of happiness . of the smitten monarch of Israel, " I shall go to him but he shall not return to me." Amelia was an orphan-even from the hour of These are the sensations which spring up, her birth. Her father fell a victim to the legal when the heart bows down at the grave of a lost swindling, that tore from him his honest gains as child-and from such an indulgence I was once a merchant , while he whose credit he had supstartled by an audible sigh. I raised my head, ported by the error of endorsements, lived in and at a little distance discovered a female affluence upon the reputed property of a wife. The ill-fated father of Amelia sunk beneath the stretched out upon a grave, and giving that form shock: her mother died in giving her birth, and of expression to her feelings that recent bereavement allows. I would not for worlds have inshe was nursled on the bosom of a stranger. Yet the charities of the world were not cold to her. truded upon the sacredness of grief, nor shocked She grew up in the fostering smiles of a family, the mourner by presenting myself as the witness who deemed it of more virtue to raise unto useof her outpoured sorrow. I retained my position for a few minutes, when the female rose, fulness a single human being and fit her for the drew from her bosom a miniature, pressed it high destinies of her nature, than to amass the convulsively to her lips and to her heart, then wealth of a Croesus , or enjoy the highest gift that the bribed acclamation of party favour could turning, she slowly left the church yard, but not bestow. till I had obtained a view of her face, the feaH Amelia responded to the wishes of her foster
