Читать книгу Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart онлайн

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But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to the household. All is bright again:

The violet bed’s not sweeter

Than the delicious breath marriage sends forth.

Her lip is rich and full; her cheek delicate as a flower. Her frailty doubles your love.

And the little one she clasps—frail too—too frail: the boy you had set your hopes and heart on. You have watched him growing, ever prettier, ever winning more and more upon your soul. The love you bore to him when he first lisped names—your name and hers—has doubled in strength now that he asks innocently to be taught of this, of that, and promises you by that quick curiosity that flashes in his eye, a mind full of intelligence.

And some hair-breadth escape by sea, or flood, that he perhaps may have had—which unstrung your soul to such tears as you pray God may be spared you again—has endeared the little fellow to your heart a thousandfold.

And, now with his pale sister in the grave, all that love has come away from the mound, where worms feast, and centers on the boy.