She had
spared no pains in educating her, and she had well repaid the labor
bestowed upon her in the acquisition of knowledge.
She was beautiful in person, amiable in disposition, and was beloved
by a large circle of acquaintances. She was married early, to the
companion of her choice, who had been attentive to her from childhood,
declaring the first time he saw her, he never saw such beautiful curls
in his life, as Annie Grey's.
She had two little sons, and all looked bright and prosperous; Annie
was happy in the affection of her husband, her children and her
friends, but death lingered not for these things; he came, a most
unwelcome visitant, and bore his unwilling victim from the presence of
her agonized mother, "to join the pale nations of the dead."
She dressed her in the gilded trappings of life, bolstered her up in
bed, and curling her beautiful hair in glossy ringlets over her pale
face, had her likeness taken as large as life, and touched with
natural coloring, thus preserving the form and features of her child,
upon the senseless canvass, which was kept hung up in her room,
covered with black crape, during her life time.
Annie ever expressed repugnance at the idea of being deposited in
the ground, and her mother had this tomb built that she might there
repose, and she could watch her sleeping dust as it crumbled to decay.
Who that looked in upon that mouldering mass of blackened dust, and
contrasted it with the beautiful form that moved in life, but learned
an impressive lesson of the change that death makes upon the form of
youth and beauty? She had slept there many years, and the mother felt
the time was approaching, when she must take the last look of those
dear remains, and have them removed to the second vault, or buried
beneath the grassy turf; but ere the time arrived, the great reaper
gathered father and mother into his abundant harvest, and laid them by
her side.
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