And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow;
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.

-- Tennyson.


It was a bright, cheerful morning in June. The sinking, feeble
Madeleine had requested her domestics to carry her to the conservatory,
that she might gaze again on the flowers that were soon to blossom
on her grave. Death had lingered in his approach. The gay, the
ambitious, and healthy he had taken all too soon; but for Madeleine,
WHO LONGED TO GO, he tarried. Her little violets had already given
their first fragrant kiss to breezes that passed with no mournful
cadence through the cypresses of the lonely cemetery. Crumbling in
her hand a faded rose, she breathed the thought so beautifully versified
in after-times by the immortal bard of Erin:

So soon may I follow
When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

The sentiment was prophetic: other flowers of affection will be withered
by the vicissitudes of destiny; fond ones will flee, leaving the world
a wilderness for her last hours!