Elizabeth Elton Smith

It was a glorious day in autumn. The sky of unsullied Dlue glowed like a sapphire. The universal air was filled with stillness. Not a breeze whispered , — not a bird flapped its wing. It was the triumph of repose, — when the undying energies of man slumbered for a moment, — when even the conflict of his passions was suspended. Beautiful, melancholy autumn! whose ruddy ripeness whispers of decay; whose richest teints mingle with “the sere and yellow leaf,” as if the lusty year had toiled through youth and manhood for wealth which overflows, just when waning life indicates that the power of enjoyment is passing away.
A small grove of noble chestnuts threw its kindly shadow over a house of modest elegance. Sheltered from the fierce beams that darted from the south, the weary wayfarer gazed on it with a longing eye, as a nest of domestic comfort. And in that spot the dearest household charities had flourished ; it was the home of a widow and her only child.
But now an awful visitant was there. Death had laid his hand on the beloved, the revered, parent. For her, time had sounded his last note, and she was whispering her dying counsels in the ear of the fair creature who knelt by her side. Pale as the young face was, which was turned upward, now to the dying mother, now to heaven, it was glorious in its rare beauty. Sorrow and watching had dimmed the brilliance of its colouring ; but the eye of holy blue, the noble brow, the polished forehead, the glittering hair displaying its golden luxuriance as it hung neglected and unbound — were still there. It was the face of an angel in its beauty ; but the feelings, the sufferings of a mortal wore marring its brightness.