DEDICATION.
My Mother:
My Mother:
My Mother:
My Mother:
In dedicating this book to you, I have no choice of words; the memories of a helpless and feeble childhood crowd too closely on my heart for that. From the day when you received me an infant from the arms of a dying sister, down to the calm twilight of your own most useful life, I have a remembrance only of more than motherly kindness and entire affection. My childhood and my youth, with all their joys and tender griefs, are so beautifully blended with thoughts of your household virtues and maternal love, that it is impossible to realize that even partial orphanage was ever known to me.
I once hoped to blend with yours the name of that honored father, who has but lately laid down the burden of almost fourscore years and ten, and gone forth from the faithful affection which surrounded him here, to the more perfect love of heaven. But my father is dead, and in the holy welcome of angels the voice of his own child is hushed. Still, through the golden chain of your love, my mother, this dedication shall yet reach him. With you—who made his old age tranquil almost as the heaven he approached, who went faithfully down to the valley of the shadow of death, giving him up only to the angels that waited there—I leave this homage, that it may be conveyed to him through your nightly prayers.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
New York,May, 1857.
New York,May, 1857.
New York,May, 1857.
New York,May, 1857.