 | Artemus Ward, his book ; with many comic
illustrations |  |
THE WIFE.
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
“She must weep or she will die.”
The propriety of introducing a sad story like the
following, in a book intended to be rather cheerful
in its character, may be questioned; but it so beautifully
illustrates the firmness of woman when grief
and despair have taken possession of “the chambers
of her heart,” that we cannot refrain from relating
it.
Lucy M—— loved with all the ardor of a fond
and faithful wife, and when he upon whom she had
so confidingly leaned was stolen from her by death,
her friends and companions said Lucy would go
mad. Ah, how little they knew her!
Gazing for the last time upon the clay-cold features
of her departed husband, this young widow—beautiful
even in her grief: so ethereal to look upon and
yet so firm!—looking for the last time upon the
dear, familiar face, now cold and still in death—Oh,
looking for the last, last time—she rapidly put on
her bonnet, and thus addressed the sobbing gentlemen
who were to act as pall-bearers: “You pall-bearers
just go into the buttery and get some rum,
and we'll start this man right along!”
| Artemus Ward, his book ; with many comic
illustrations | |