Womanhood

Eight times have the Christmas fires been kindled on the hearths
of Shannondale's happy homes; eight times the bell from St Luke's
tower has proclaimed an old year dead, and a new one born; eight
times the meek-eyed daisy struggling through the April snow, has
blossomed, faded and died; eight times has summer in all her
glowing beauty sat upon the New England hills, and the mellow
autumnal light of the hazy October days falls on Collingwood for
the eighth time since last we trod the winding paths and gravelled
walks where now the yellow leaves are drifting down from the tall
old maples and lofty elms, and where myriad flowers of gorgeous
hue are lifting their proud heads unmindful of the November frosts
hastening on apace.

All around Collingwood seems the same, save
that the shrubs and vines show a more luxurious growth, and the
pond a wider sweep, but within there is an empty chair, a vacant
place, for the old man has gone to join his lost ones where there
is daylight forever, and the winter snows have four times fallen
upon his grave. They missed him at first and mourned for him
truly, but they have become accustomed to live without him, and
the household life goes on much as it did before.

It is now the afternoon of a mild October day, and the doors and
windows are opened wide to admit the warm south wind, which,
dallying for a moment with the curtains of costly lace, floats on
to the chamber above, where it toys with the waving plumes a young
girl is arranging upon her riding hat, pausing occasionally to
speak to the fair blonde who sits watching her movements, and
whose face betokens a greater maturity than her own, for Grace
Atherton's family Bible says she is thirty-two, while Edith is
seventeen.