Clemence | Page 7

Teach us the lesson of patience, oh Father above! 'Tis a wearisome struggle. This is a sin-fallen world, and want and misery abound upon every hand. Is it true, as another has declared--'Every sin is an edict of Divinity; every pain is a precept of destiny; wisdom is as full in what man calls good and evil, as God is full in infinitude?'"
Well, God sees, and over all is the loving care of "our Father who art in Heaven."
And sometimes, when human sympathy is denied us--when the eyes, that should only beam with pity and affection, turn coldly away, Nature, bountiful mother, stretches out her arms lovingly, and wooes us to her with an irresistible, but nameless charm. She cradles the tired head upon her bosom, presses cool kisses upon weary, drooping eyelids, and broods over the slumberer with loving vigils. Under her tender ministrations our dreams are blessed visions of the "green pastures and the still waters," and the "shining ones" waiting "beyond the river."
The smiling Spring day faded slowly. Evening came on apace. Under the moonlit sky a fair-browed girl kept loving vigil. It was sweet Clemence Graystone. There was a troubled look in the calm eyes. Life's battle had but just began. They were all alone now. Death had entered their little circle and robbed them of their dear one. The loving husband and kind father, who had toiled for them, working day after day, and often far into the night, to surround his cherished darlings with the elegancies to which they had been accustomed, had been suddenly taken away, and "their house was left unto them desolate." They had not even time to mourn, for, after they had buried their dead out of their sight, the man of business came and told them in brief, unsympathetic tones that they must leave the home that had so long sheltered them, for the wealth that had purchased and made it beautiful, was their's no longer. They were penniless. It was a cruel blow. Mrs. Graystone sank helplessly under it, and the delicately reared daughter had all the burden thrown upon her young shoulders. And nobly did she bear it. Clemence Graystone, with her bright, radiant face, had seemed to her fond father like a sunbeam gilding that stately home, and warming into living beauty what else would have been only cold magnificence. To her mother, deprived of every other earthly comfort, she became a ministering angel. She forgot her own trials: she did not mourn that she had lost the privileges of society to which their former wealth entitled them: and her beautiful lips curled in contempt, as one by one, those who had once professed the warmest friendship, passed her with a cool nod or haughty stare. Clemence had learned now how to value these summer friends, who scattered at the first breath of adversity, and she tried bravely to keep back the tears that would come at the sight of her loved home in the possession of strangers. She had something else to do now, must be something else beside a "dreamer of vain dreams," and must work to procure food for them both.
Yes, it had come to that. In America, where fortunes are made or lost in a day, the millionaire may have his wealth suddenly swept from him, and one of humble position as suddenly attain to affluence. An unlooked for turn in the tide of affairs, a seeming caprice of the fickle goddess Fortune, who saw fit to frown where she had always smiled, and Grosvenor Graystone was a ruined man. The shock was too much for him, and he died of grief and despair. It was nothing new, there are hundreds of such cases every day. People commented, some pityingly, and others exultingly, as we have seen. "Poor things!" was echoed dolefully, and then each went his or her way, and the gentle lady and fair-browed girl were left to their fate. It was this--to work if they could get it, if not, beg or starve. Nobody was interested in their fate. Henceforth they must be all in all to each other. Their slender stock of money soon dwindled away. Clemence turned to the one alternative, work. She must get employment, but where, or how? She had no one to turn to for advice. Pride forbade her asking help of those who had known them in the days of their prosperity, and who should have come forward at once with offers of assistance. There was no one in the great, wide city to give her even a word of encouragement. She must rely solely upon her own judgment. What could she do? She might go out as a governess. She ran over in her mind her list of accomplishments. She had a