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Updated: April 30, 2025
"We are all called upon to bear our cross in this life, dear child," said Mr. Halberg. "This will be a heavy one to your old uncle, but it is for your good, and he therefore cheerfully submits to it. I am not afraid to confide you to One who will guide you unto a perfect rest and peace. Come in, my children," said he, as a tap announced his three daughters.
Halberg, as Jennie made an effort to say something to him, "but put your arms around my neck, and let me feel by this mute expression that the past is forgiven; I am not yet able to bear one word from the child of my deserted sister."
If we had not learned with such apparent certainty about the death of the child I should say this was she," soliloquized he, as his wife left the room for one moment, and resuming the subject as she returned. "Why, Eleanor, how long is it since my father lost his reason?" "About four years, I believe," replied Mrs. Halberg.
"Fred," said Henry, as they left the gate, "I never can forget that face. Did you see how almost heavenly it was as she stood by old Mr. Halberg when we left?" "It was indeed a lovely picture," said Fred; "the old bowed head with the evening's breath moving the gray hair, and that delicate girl, with her white dress glistening in the moonbeams, and with the seraphic expression on her brow!"
"I feel that I have so little to tell," said Jennie, trying to evade the subject; "the time spent with you has been so pleasant, that it quite banishes the bitterness of my younger days." "And yet," said Mr. Halberg, "there must have been intense anguish on your mother's part, as she felt herself given up by those who should have clung to her, and her very means of subsistence failing her!"
For a long time the two girls sat gazing earnestly upward, while one heart dwelt lovingly upon the old figure with silvery locks, and the other upon the spirits of her departed parents that seemed even then hovering about her. "Only three weeks more to vacation," said Mary Halberg, as she entered the parlor one morning with an open letter in her hand.
"Ah! where is our own rector?" asked Mr. Halberg. "I suppose he is supplying this young minister's pulpit," returned the warden. "It is seldom that we have an exchange, and they say that this stranger is uncommonly eloquent." "We shall have an opportunity to judge for ourselves," said Mr. Halberg, as he turned from his friend and entered the church with his niece.
"The precincts of the dead, dear uncle," said Jennie, "are any thing but gloomy to me; the lessons of my childhood were too full of solemn realities to foster in me a shrinking from the entrance to a purer and more beauteous existence." "It is of your early life I would speak, my child," said Mr. Halberg, with an effort at composure.
Her father looked eagerly upon it, and with tremulous fingers pressed a spring upon the back. It was indeed his sister's likeness, placed beyond dispute by the convincing inscription, "Jane Halberg, to her beloved daughter, Jennie Grig!"
Halberg, "that it might be false, until to-night; but Eleanor, presentiments come sometimes upon us with all the force of a certain conviction, and my conscience will never be easy until I, make some effort to find out, beyond the shadow of doubt, whether my sister's child is wandering upon the earth, yearning for kindred and home, or is gathered to the home which is brighter than any this world can afford.
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