Godey's Lady's Book

GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, February 1850

THE NEST AT HOME.

BY MRS. JOSEPH C. NEAL.

(See Plate.)
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" Crush in thy heart all pride –
By pride the angels fell. "

MADELINE HERBERT was for once unconscious of the light cooing and caroling of her infant child. The little creature twined her white and dimpled arms about her mother's neck, but the soft caress was unreturned; and there the lady cat, in a deep and sorrowful revery, until the shadows of the twilight fell. The old oaken chair which she had drawn to the open window, was the familiar friend of her own childhood. The landscape, which stretched miles away in rich and vernal beauty, was the same which had greeted her daily since she could first appreciate the loveliness of earth. The old oaks that were now bathed in the gorgeous light of a summer sunset; the velvet lawn that sloped gently to a little lake; the lake itself, so tranquil in its dark border of ferns and sedges – all these inanimate objects wore the same aspect that she could ever remember in this delicious season of the year.

And there crept the tangled honeysuckle, where the summer-house still stood; and near it, the old thorn tree, where the robins had built their nests many springs ago, and where Madeline, with her sister, had passed many a happy hour. Oh, it was very lovely, that English home, away from the stir of cities and the noise of traffic. The old trees seemed to guard it from all intrusion, as they rustled with a gentle, soothing murmur in the evening wind. Save this, and the soft ripple of the lake, the low tinkle of a far-off bell, or the solemn caw of the rooks up among the branches, no sound came to disturb that soft repose.

And now we will tell you why Madeline Herbert, turned from all this external beauty with a sigh, and why her eyes were fixed on a picture hanging in the recess before her. Clasped by her arm, his fair, soft curls sweeping over her knee, was another child, who now " slept the sweeter, that he had wept before. " They had brought him to her, struggling in the hands of his nurse, to be soothed by her gentle voice. Every entreaty and endearment had been lavished on him before, but the child had sobbed, " Mamma, mamma! where have they taken her to? " It was sad to see passionate grief in so young a child; and Madeline whispered, " I am your mamma now, darling. You must love me, little Harry, " while tears dimmed her eyes and made her low voice falter. And, at last, with the variableness of childhood, tears gave place to smiles; and, half prepared for his nightly bath, he fell asleep at her side, prattling of the pretty nest which they had given him in endeavoring to bribe him from his grief. Madeline motioned to the attendants not. to disturb him, and so she sat embracing her own and her sister's child.

That picture! It gleamed out from the dark recess, and riveted her gaze. There, fresh as when the hand of the artist had first fixed the colors there, were two sweet childish faces; the one with the same soft eyes which were now the charm of Madeline's face, the other with a high and haughty beauty that formed a strange contrast in the loveliness of the twin sisters. Yes, they had slept in the same cradle, received, kneeling side by side, the evening blessing of their mother, and together played, in childish gayety, with the acorn-cups beneath the old thorn-tree. Not an hour ago, the nest which Henry still grasped had been discovered in its branches. Madeline had almost forgotten the present, as these recollections were called up, one after another, with the freshness of reality.

Oh, that sister's face of haunting, unearthly beauty, how she yearned to look on it again! How well she could recall the haughty pride of her stately tread in that very room; the queenly head, the flashing eyes! But years have passed, and that beauty is hidden by the low turf of a stranger's burial-ground; a rest welcomed and longed for by a still proud, but broken-hearted woman.

Wilful in her childhood, inflexible in maturer life, Isabel, the pride of her father's heart, wedded against his wishes and even his commands. Her lot had been the bitter one of disobedience: betrayed where most she trusted, deserted in a foreign land ere her child could speak his father's name, she died, dependent upon strangers for sympathy in the last dark hour, bequeathing her little one to her sister's care.

It was a sad, yet precious trust to Madeline Herbert, now the wife of one whom all revered, and to whom her dying father had given his ancestral estates with his daughter's hand. The child came,, and, at the first glance, she saw the mother's beauty with the mother's pride; the came wilful curling of the lip; the same startled, indignant glance from his dark eyes when strangers caressed him. Ay, it was a fearful trust, the guidance of such a spirit.

That night, her prayer went up as silently as the dew fell or the rose blossomed, but very earnestly, that the sin by which his mother had fallen might be crushed in the heart of the child; and that, as he grew side by side with her own Isabel, " the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit " might be given to them both.

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