Stella Rosevelt

“Star!”

“Yes, Uncle Jacob.”

“The night has almost come.”

“The dawn, you mean, dear; do not call it night, for truly I believe it is the break of day for you.”

“You are right; I should not call it night. But always remember, dear, and let the thought comfort you when you come to miss me, that your hand has guided me through the darkness, pointing me ever toward the light of a better world.”

The speaker paused, for he was very weak.

Jacob Rosevelt lay upon a luxurious couch in an elegant apartment of Lady Star Carrol’s beautiful home, and looking his last upon earth.

Everything that wealth, and love, and care could do had been done for the dear old man whom she loved so fondly; but now, after three years of such peace and content as once he had never thought to enjoy, he was dying.

Star, who, in a spotless white wrapper, sits beside him, has grown a trifle matronly in her appearance, a little rounded and fuller in figure, and there is something more of dignity in her bearing; but she has the same star-like beauty—she is not one whit less lovely or less deserving of her name than when we last saw her on her bridal morn.

A year of almost unalloyed happiness passed after that event, and then there was born a fine heir to the Carrol estate—a boy, of whom his father was very proud, and who at once became the pet and pride of the whole household.

Uncle Jacob, with this little one folded within his arms, or sitting crowing upon his knee, with Star fondly attentive to his every want, and Lord Carrol to lean upon in his old age, felt as if he had attained as nearly to perfect happiness as any one could do in this world.

But during the third year after their marriage he had gradually but surely failed, until, to the great grief of all, they were obliged to acknowledge that he had not long to live.

This was the first great sorrow of Star’s wedded life; but she strove to bear it cheerfully, at least in Mr. Rosevelt’s presence, resolving that no mourning or repining should cloud the little time that remained to him to live—that there should be nothing but peace, and a looking forward to the great change as simply the sweeping aside of a misty vail and an entrance into something more blessed and beautiful than earth could give.

Now the crisis had come, and the old man, his wan face turned toward the fading light of a glorious day, felt that his strength and senses were slipping away from him, and told the constant watcher by his side that the “night had come.”

“No, I ought not to have said that,” he repeated, after a few moments of rest, while a smile parted his pale lips; “the night is past, and you, dear one, have been my guiding star in the midst of its deepest gloom. I did not have much faith in a better future until I knew you; you set me to thinking that night on the angry deep, when you told me you ‘had been taught to trust our Heavenly Father,’ and that ‘one could hardly have much faith in one’s self at such a time as that.’ Yes, your simple trust in your Father’s faith, your pure and gentle life, my Star, has led me to God, and without a fear I resign myself into His hands; before another day dawns I shall have entered into my rest, and the Sun of Righteousness will shine upon me.”

“Oh, Uncle Jacob,” Star said, her voice full of unshed tears, but with a holy awe shining in her beautiful face, “you have never talked so plainly to me—you have never opened your heart like this to me, and I am so thankful to you for speaking such precious words to me before——”

She stopped; her trembling lips could not frame the words to complete the sentence.

“Before I leave you, never more to look upon your dear face in this life,” he said, with a tender smile on his lips, while the light of faith grew brighter in his eyes. “Yes, dear, it is so. We both know it, and why not speak of it calmly, as of a journey, during which we should be separated only for a little while. I shall go first, my darling, but the vail that will hide us from each other is dropping very softly and gently. You will not grieve for me, my child?”

“No, no, Uncle Jacob; only for myself, who will be so very lonely without you.”

But Star could not quite keep back the quiver from her voice as she said this. He noticed it, and put out his thin hand to clasp it.

“Be comforted, my darling, with the thought of what you have made the last years of my life—a season of peace and content. Remember always that without you I should have groped on in darkness until my soul would literally have gone out into the ‘night.’ But now, as I have said, I have no fear. No; a bright vision rises up before me; I seem to see just beyond the ‘great white throne’ of which you read only last Sabbath, and where sits the form of Him who has taken from me all the guilt of sin and unbelief. It is Jesus, the Lamb of God, and you, my beloved, by the gentle influence of your beautiful faith, have led me thither.”

Star bent down and kissed the pale hand clasping hers, and which was growing cold even then, while the tears which she could not restrain fell hotly upon it.

“I know that I am dying,” he went on, more weakly than before; “I know that this chill which I feel creeping over me, benumbing my senses and dimming my sight, is death. I know that soon my breath must cease, and that the King of Terrors will cut the cord which binds me to earth and all I love here. But there is no terror in the thought, for the faith which you have taught me points me to the ‘radiant vistas of a world divine,’ where perchance I may find among the ransomed throng a spirit who was once kindred to my own. Ah, my darling, dry your tears, and remember that, in spite of this dissolving frame, I am whole! for the healing hand of Christ hath touched me, while your life, passing in its brief transit over mine, has been the instrument of it all.”

Is this a sad scene with which to close my story?

Is it sad to see the fruits of a beautiful life, and to learn how one faithful soul led another home to heaven and God? Will any one call such a triumph as the passing away of Jacob Rosevelt sad?

No. At least it did not appear so to those who witnessed it.

It was a hallowed room where Star sat, a little later, and gazed upon her dead—upon that brow which had settled into such tranquillity—upon that restful, upturned face, which wore a smile “calm as a twilight lake,” and upon which “God’s full-orbed peace was shining,” transfiguring it with something of the radiance that had enraptured the fleeting soul.

But she would not grieve for him; for, although she should never cease to yearn

she knew that, in that far-off world “where the weary are at rest,” it was “well with him.”

And when they laid him away in the family vault at Halowell, where, too, lay the moldering form of her whom he had so loved in the days of his earlier manhood, she did not murmur, for she felt that he had left behind him a wealth of faith, and love, and trust that would glorify all her own after-life, and she found herself repeating, with one of our sweetest poets:

All through the years that came and went in her beautiful home, of which she was the chief charm, she carried the memory and influences of that last hour of Jacob Rosevelt’s life, and it seemed to be an added link in the golden chain that bound her soul to their common God.

The thought of it was like a strain of heavenly music, making her life rich with melody. It was like a breath from the flowers of Paradise, perfuming all around her.

Her husband worshiped her—reverently, as a gift from the Divine Hand; her children “sat at her feet and learned of her,” and, rising up, “called her blessed;” while all who knew her likened the influence of her lovely example, the luster and beauty of her life, to the “transit” of some bright “star.”