The lilies of the field, May well to us a lesson yield, Then let us think of death, Though we are young and gay; THE END OF THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. JULIANA OAKLEY. CHAPTER I. Some account of her Parents and Family-Her Father goes abroad, and she is sent for by her Grandmother-Her Journey with Mrs. Bridget to Hartley Hall-Arrival there; and introduction to the old lady, Uncle Barnaby, and Cousin Cicely. ALTHOUGH it has pleased my heavenly Father to protract my life to an advanced age, and although, during that period, among a thousand experiences of his tender love and paternal care, I have been made to pass through many scenes of trial, in the various characters of wife and mother; yet there are certain scenes of my childhood, of which I retain so affecting a recollection that I cannot think of them even to this day without tears. But inasmuch as that I would willingly caution others from falling into such errors as those which to this moment imbitter some of the remembrances of my girlish days, I shall enter into a detail of the particulars to which I allude, and for this purpose must make my reader acquainted with many of the circumstances of my early life. The person who will fill up one of the most important places in my history is my grandmother. She was an heiress, and was in her bloom so far back as the reign of George I. She married early, and was left a widow with two children soon after her marriage. I know not what sort of a person her husband was, nor am I acquainted with any particulars respecting him, excepting that he wore, on occasion, a full-bottomed wig, and a coat and waistcoat richly trimmed with gold lace, in which costume he was painted at three-quarters length, and made no despicable figure in his gilt frame, over the fireplace in the great drawing-room at Hartley Hall. I never could perceive that my grandmother suffered |
