She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which
give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and
transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never
blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers,
under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant
music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost,
reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face
with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened
the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence
of God.
V.
Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the
Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his
marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years
Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an
unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally
determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to
manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt,
and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show
of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached.
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