O,
Ellen, is there no music in those words, to your young heart? And,
mother, does it not come to you, in your declining age, and bid your
wearied spirit seek that rest that remains for the people of God?"
She ceased to speak: the breath became shorter and shorter, till it
only came with convulsive gasps. She once again opened her weary eyes,
looked earnestly upon the face of her mother and her sister, then
glancing round the apartment, seemed as though she were bidding a last
adieu to all it contained--then closing them forever upon earthly
things, without a struggle or a groan, the spirit of Annie Somers
passed gently away.
The storm continued its violence, and desolate indeed, was the cottage
home of the mother and the sister, where lay the lifeless form of
Annie, reposing in the long deep sleep of death.
It was Sabbath day--a stormy Sabbath day, when the coffin of Annie was
borne upon the shoulders of four men to its last resting place.
It was covered with a neat black velvet pall, at each corner of which
hung suspended a heavy black silk tassel, which waved in the wind as
it came careering on, in fitful gusts, one blast scattering a shower
of snow upon the velvet pall, and the next, sweeping it away, and so
they laid her in her grave, amid the howling of the wintry storm; but
it disturbed not her repose.
Willie and Matilda sleep upon the banks of the Sandy river. The
father's grave was made upon the banks of the far off Mississippi, and
Annie rests by the side of the winding Androscoggin; her mother, too,
is by her side; for she soon followed to the land of shadows.
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