One Fallen

The winter passed, and the spring came; and moved on with its
sweet step of peace, as it does even when men's hearts are all
at war. The echo of the battlefields of Virginias wept through
the Boulevards with met often; and it thundered at home. Mamma
had burst into new triumph at the news of Chancellorsville;
and uttered with great earnestness her wish that Jefferson
Davis might be able to execute the threat of his proclamation
and hang General Butler. But for me, I got no letter; and
these echoes began to sound in my ear like the distant outside
rumblings of the storm to one whose hearthstone it has already
swept and laid desolate. I was not desolate; yet I began to
listen as one whose ears were dim with listening. I met
Faustina St. Clair again with uneasiness. Not the torment of
my former jealousy; but a stir of doubt and pain which I could
not repress at the sight of her.

When the summer drew on, to my great pleasure we went to
Switzerland again. We established ourselves quietly at
Lucerne, which papa was very fond of. There we were much more
quiet than we had been the fall before; Ransom having gone
home now to take his share in the struggle, and our two
Southern friends who had also gone, having no successors like
them in our little home circle. We made not so many and not so
long excursions. But papa and I had good time for our
readings; and I had always a friend with whom I could take
counsel, in the grand old Mont Pilatte. What a friend that
mountain was to me, to be sure! When I was downhearted, and
when anything made me glad; when I was weary and when I was
most full of life; its grand head in the skies told me of
truth and righteousness and strength; the light and colours
that played and rested there, as it held, the sun's beams and
gave them back to earth, were a sort of promise to me of
beauty and life above and beyond this earth; yes, and of its
substantial existence now, even when we do not see it. They
were a little hint of what we do not see. I do not exactly
know what was the language of the wreaths of vapour that robed
and shrouded and then revealed the mountain, with the
exquisite shiftings and changings of their gracefulness; I
believe it was like, to me, the floating veil that hides God's
purposes from us, yet now and then parting enough to let us
see the eternal truth and unchangeableness behind it. I told
all my moods to Mont Pilatte, and I think it told all its
moods to me. After a human friend, there is nothing like a big
mountain. And when the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg came;
and mamma grew furious; and I saw for the first time that
success was truly looming up on the horizon of the North, and
that my dear coloured people might indeed soon be free; that
night Mont Pilatte and I shouted together.