In a few months
the young shift for themselves, forgetting and forgotten. But with our
young the helpless periods of infancy and youth are so long. Parental
anxiety goes through so many trials and so various, and they all strike
roots into the parent's heart. Yet after twenty years of love and hope
and fear comes a handsome young fellow, a charming highwayman to a
parent's eye, and whisks her away after two months' courtship. Then, oh,
ye young, curb for a moment your blind egotism, and feel a little for the
parents who have felt so much for you! You rather like William Hope, so
let him help you to pity your own parents. See his sad face as he looks
at the love he is yet too unselfish to discourage. To save that tender
root, a sickly child, he transplanted it from his own garden, and still
tended it with loving care for many a year. Another gathers the flower.
He watched and tended and trembled over the tender nestling. The young
bird is trying her wings before his eyes; soon she will spread them, and
fly away to a newer nest and a younger bosom.
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