Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

'f your sorrow. I suffer with you, my darling, and I
huii' ai done."
m would, dear, good auiit that you are. )
love me."
i
o blame your parents, my child; they funded the}'
id for your advantage, only they do not
'and what you and 1 mean by The whole misfortun
:nin that. >,'' the thing is done, and I want
;y darling, to listen to what my earnest ail'ection for hild wishes to make her feel.
my
"You must not give way, my own Eose, to this sorl of de-
spair.
. if
You must accept your fate with courageous resignation,
it is not possible to look on the future in a better light.
You have now ceased to be a child. Yesterday's ceremony
made you a woman, and you must try to be a good and sensible
one. Instead of looking back with regret and despondency, fix
your eyes dispassionately on the future. Depon upondit, Rose,
on one who has duties to perform, and a loving heart, need be
really unhappy. 1 know that at your age it is* difficult to be
satistied with but a tolerable sort of existence. You had fancied
that you were to be, one day, intensely happy. You think that
this can never now be the case, and your fate seems to you a
rery hard and extraordinary one. My dear child, the happiness
you had pictured to yourself is of very rare occurrence. Those
who have a strong power of loving do not often meet with a re-
turn, and it is perhaps still moie terrible to lose a blessing once
lian never to have had it.
" .Many and many women have seen their hopes and their joys
vanish before they had scarcely been realized. They have had
,-,> themselves, 'It is for ever at an end, that romantic
bliss I thought I had secured.' They have felt as if it would be
ible to live without it, but they have done without it, and
found in life a fair share of happiness. There are in your des-
tiny some compensations."
"You are not going, Aunt Mode, to speak to me like
mamma of my carriage and my gowns," Rose bitterly
exclaimed, spurning with her little foot the lace trimmings of
her wedding dress.
Xo, my child; what I allude to are higher and better consothau
those. I want you to think of the duties which the
sacrament of marriage imposes upon Catholic Christians, and the
blessings attached to it. I wish you to reflect upon the particu-
lar duties you are called upon to perform. From this day forward
an important task is assigned to you, young as you are,
and a great responsibility. The ordinary course of things is
somewhat reversed in your case. Instead of becoming the wife
of a man who could guide and direct you, it is your lot to be
married to one whom you will have to watch over, to lead, to
take care of. My child, there is something sacred in such a mis-
sion. It is a holy duty assigned to a woman to be a kind of
guardian angel to one weaker, in every respect, than herself.
Yesterday you were a child a thoughtless girl. To-day you
will begin to be your husband's protector, his counselor, and his
friend. You will be to him what his mother has been. You
will teach him how sweet it is to be cared for, and to care for
others. And who knows, his heart and his mind may expand in
the genial atmosphere of domestic happiness, and you may be
led by witnessing a great change in his moral and mental
state. Love the love which springs from the highest of principles
and the most sacred of duties, is a great worker of mira-
iiil in any case there is not a higher, or a sweeter mission,
than to bind the wounds of the heart. Infinite graces, heavenly
blessings without number, descend upon those who devote themselves
to this task. Believe me, dearest Rose, those who make
sacrifices to duty, who accept the chalice which the will of their
Father in heaven holds to their lips, and carry their cross with
c after their suffering Lord, know deeper and truer joys
than those of selfish or worldly souls, who think of nothing but
their own enjoyments."