Tenderly Dawn looked upon her little group each day, and all the maternal instincts of her nature sprang to the surface, as she thought of their lives coming without their asking, forced upon them to be battled out through storm and fire. Would that all parents might feel the responsibility of maternity, as that pure being did, who gave the richest, warmest current of her life to bear those children on. "He who has most of heart, knows most of sorrow," and many were the moments of sadness that came to Dawn, as she saw beings who were recklessly brought into life to suffer for the want of love and care. But, though sorrowed, she never became morbid. She lived and worked by the light that was given her, earnestly, which is all a mortal can do.
No season was complete to her which did not bring to her side Miss Bernard, who seemed the complement of her very self. One warm summer evening when the air was sweet with the breath of roses, they sat together; earnest words flowing from soul to soul, and their natures blending like the parts of a sweet melody; Dawn's high hope floating above the rich undertone of the deep life-tide on which the soul of her friend was borne.
"I have often wondered," said Dawn, as she clasped the friendly palm more tenderly, "if my life will be as firmly rooted as your own; if the same rich calm will pervade my being."
"If it be once full of agitation, it will surely be calm at last," said Miss Bernard, in that firm tone which indicates that the storms of life are over, "for we are like the molten silver, which continues in a state of agitation until all impurities are thrown off, and then becomes still. We know no rest until the dross is burned away, and our Saviour's face is seen reflected in our own."
The moonlight fell on her features just then, almost transfiguring the still, pale countenance. That holy moment brought them nearer than years of common-place emotions, or any of the external excitements of life. A tenderer revealing of their relation to each other flashed through their hearts-a relation which the silvery moon, and still summer night typified, as all our states find their analogies in the external world.
"I often query," said Dawn, breaking the silence, "what portion of your being I respond to?"
"I have often asked myself the same question. Dawn, of those whom I loved, and in my earlier years felt ambitious to become the counterpart of friends dear to my life. I have grown more humble now, and feel content to fill, as I know I only can, a portion of any soul. I can truly say, you touch and thrill every part of my being, if you do not fill it, and that just now you answer to every part. With some, my being stands still, I forget the past, and know no future. There is one who thus acts upon me now, though many others have stirred me to greater depths, and excited profounder sentiments,--this one calls forth the tenderest emotions of my heart and stimulates me to kindlier deeds. Thus do all in turn act and re-act upon each other, and what we need is to know just how to define this relation, for the emotions it calls forth are so often mistaken for those of love between the sexes, which marriage seals, and in few years reveals the painful fact, that what was supposed to be soul blending with soul, was only the union of a single thought and feeling, while the remainder of their nature was wholly unresponded to, its deepest and holiest aspirations unmated."
"Do we not answer to each other now, because we are aglow with life, and each susceptible to the others emotion?" asked Dawn.
"Something deeper," said her friend. "It is because we are both illumined by the divine essence which pervades all space and matter, as the air surrounds this globe. We are both full, and reflect each other's repletion. The theme is grand, and one which I would like to enlarge upon to-night, before our states are changed to those harsher ones, in which diviner truths a............