The tears seemed to burn
their way down her cheeks. She spoke but seldom, yet that pitiful moan
she so often breathed out pierced our souls and made us all very sad.
After a few weeks, the consolation we offered her quieted her feelings,
and she became calm. She went to church, called on her friends, and
attended to her duties at home. But there was ever a sadness in her
voice and manners. Her home was so lonely, so strangely still and
vacant, and Ellen so silent, that the voice of gladness was not heard in
it again until a second beautiful boy was born under its roof.
We were all happy then. Even Ellen smiled as she kissed her dear
babe--but a tear followed the smile and the kiss so soon, we knew her
wounded heart was not _then_ healed. She was very sad, and felt that
this babe, too, might only be loaned her for a short time. It was not
long before we all felt so. That little face, so pale, so sad, so
beautiful, evidently bore the seal of death upon it. He refused all
nourishment, and pined slowly away. Ellen knew he must die, but could
not say so. She could not shed one tear to relieve her sorrowful heart.
She neither spoke nor wept, until her infant was laid in its coffin.
A friend had woven a wreath of beautiful flowers, and laid it on the
satin pillow of the coffin, and placed a delicate rose-bud in the little
hand of the babe.
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