The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air | Page 5

or by a disregard of its laws of health, or by a stupendous multiplicity of cares, some of which it would have been wiser to leave to others. She took everybody's burdens to carry herself. She was absorbed in the affairs of those she loved,--of her home circle, of her sisters' families, and of many a needy one whom she adopted into her solicitude. She was thoroughly fond of children and of all that they say and do, and would work her fingers off for them, or nurse them day and night. Her sisters' children were as if they had been her own, and she revelled in all their wonderful manifestations and development. Her friends' children she always cared deeply for, and was hungry for their wise and funny remarks, or any hint of their individuality. Many of these things she remembered longer than the mothers themselves, and took the most thorough satisfaction in recounting.
I have often visited her school, and it seemed like a home with a mother in it. There we took sweet counsel together, as if we had come to the house of God in company; for our methods were identical, and a day in her school was a day in mine. We invariably agreed as to the ends of the work, and how to reach them; for we understood each other perfectly in that field of art.
I wish I could show her life with all its constituent factors of ancestry, home, and surroundings; for they were so inherent in her thoughts and feelings that you could hardly separate her from them in your consideration. But that is impossible. Disinterested benevolence was the native air of the house into which she was born, and she was an embodiment of that idea. To devote herself to some poor outcast, to reform a distorted soul, to give all she had to the most abject, to do all she could for the despised and rejected,--this was her craving and absorbing desire. I remember some comical instances of the pursuance of this self-abnegation, where the returns were, to say the least, disappointing; but she was never discouraged. It would be easy to name many who received a lifelong stimulus and aid at her hands, either intellectual or moral. She had much to do with the development of some remarkable careers, as well as with the regeneration of many poor and abandoned souls.
She was in the lives of her dear ones, and they in hers, to a very unusual degree; and her life-threads are twined inextricably in theirs forever. She was a complete woman,--brain, will, affections, all, to the greatest extent, active and unselfish; her character was a harmony of many strong and diverse elements; her conscience was a great rock upon which her whole nature rested; her hands were deft and cunning; her ingenious brain was like a master mechanic at expedients; and in executive and administrative power, as well as in device and comprehension, she was a marvel. If she had faults, they are indistinguishable in the brightness and solidity of her whole character. She was ready to move into her place in any sphere, and adjust herself to any work God should give her to do. She must be happy, and shedding happiness, wherever she is; for that is an inseparable quality and function of her identity.
She passed calmly out of this life, and lay at rest in her own home, in that dear room so full of memories of her presence, with flowers to deck her bed, and many of her dearest friends around her; while the verses which her beloved sister Caroline had selected seemed easily to speak with Jane's own voice, as they read:--
Prepare the house, kind friends; drape it and deck it With leaves and blossoms fair: Throw open doors and windows, and call hither The sunshine and soft air.
Let all the house, from floor to ceiling, look Its noblest and its best; For it may chance that soon may come to me A most imperial guest.
A prouder visitor than ever yet Has crossed my threshold o'er, One wearing royal sceptre and a crown Shall enter at my door;
Shall deign, perchance, sit at my board an hour, And break with me my bread; Suffer, perchance, this night my honored roof Shelter his kingly head.
And if, ere comes the sun again, he bid me Arise without delay, And follow him a journey to his kingdom Unknown and far away;
And in the gray light of the dawning morn We pass from out my door, My guest and I, silent, without farewell, And to return no more,--
Weep not, kind friends, I pray; not with vain tears Let your glad eyes grow dim; Remember that my house was all prepared, And that I welcomed him.

THE SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS.

THE BALL