A perfect woman, nobly plann’d,
To warn, to comfort, and command,
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light. —Wordsworth

A good man, and an angel! there between,
How thin the barrier! What divides their fate?
Perhaps a moment, or perhaps a year. —Young.

The lives of Kate and Major Gordon were as happy as might have been foretold, from their mutual affection, their firm principles, their good sense, and the adaptability of their characters. They were not exempt from the ordinary mutations of life, having their disappointments and griefs like other people; but these sorrows were never of their own making, but mysterious dispensations from an all-wise Providence.

They had the misfortune to lose their first-born, a beautiful little girl, in her early childhood, just as her budding intellect and grateful tenderness were making her dearer than ever to the heart of her parents. But with this great sorrow, came also many mercies. Other children, good and beautiful daughters, brave and conscientious sons, grew up around them, filling their household with happy faces, sweet laughter and dutiful affection. As years rolled by, and the parents verged to middle age, they had the gratification to see these daughters married to worthy men, the choice of their own hearts, and to know that these sons had found partners, who were not mere playthings of the hour, but companions competent for all the varied duties of life. One of the sons-in-law was an eminent Senator, and his wife an acknowledged leader of society in Washington, who is still remembered for her grace, her goodness and her rare talents. A son distinguished himself greatly at Tripoli, and another rose to be a foreign ambassador. Our heroine, in her mature middle age, and when still a beautiful woman, could say, with the British matron, that all her daughters were virtuous and all her sons brave.

At first, part of the year was spent at Sweetwater, and part in Philadelphia, but finally the residence of the family became fixed in the city, except for the summer months. This was in consequence of the professional calls on Major Gordon, and the unwillingness of Kate to be separated from her husband; for the Major, after the close of the war, had resumed the practice of the law, declaring that he could not be an idle man, even if his fortune was ten times as great. He brought up his sons, in imitation of his own example, each to some particular pursuit. “Every man, who wishes to be either happy, or useful,” the Major was accustomed to say, “must have some business to follow; for otherwise the mind eats itself, and ennui and ill-health follow, even if idleness does not lead to evil courses.” Thus it happened, that while other rich men’s sons were bringing the gray hairs of their fathers prematurely to the grave, the children of our hero and heroine grew up to “honor their father and mother,” and call their names “blessed.”

But the Major, even to a late period in life, was always glad to escape to Sweetwater. Once a year, during the hunting season, he visited it for the purpose of bringing down a deer; and many an exciting day he and Uncle Lawrence had in the old forests round about. The veteran came at last to say that the “Major,” as he still called our hero, “was nigh about as good a shot as himself;” and many a tale was he accustomed to rehearse, with a low, triumphant chuckle, of their mutual success. Even Mullen often received a visit from our hero. The waterman, though dangerously wounded at the fight on the Neck, subsequently recovered, and settled down, at the close of hostilities, in the harmless pursuit of a fisherman. He knew where all the best places to catch the finny tribe were to be found, and religiously kept the fact to himself, only admitting Major Gordon to the knowledge of it, and this under strict promise of secrecy. But, at last, our hero, profiting by this information, became so successful, that he often excelled his teacher and patron. Mullen, now grown to be a hardy, weather-beaten old man, with a face the color of mahogany, and a form as wiry as if made of steel, was accustomed, after such defeats, to shake his head, saying, half in jest and half in earnest, “That such treatment was too bad, he had a despise for it; it was scandal-ous.”

Uncle Lawrence lived to a good old age. To the last he retained his fondness for the chase, as well as the physical vigor to endure its fatigues. In rain or shine he would set out, even when past the “three score and ten” allotted as the term of human life, with his gun on his shoulder, whistling as he went. At night his return would be announced by that low, monotonous whistle, long before his form could be discovered through the gloom or falling mist. His death was consistent with his life. One winter Sunday he walked to the old, dear church at Sweetwater; participated in the exercises with even more than his usual earnestness; answered the ordinary kind inquiries of his friends as to his health; and was told by the Major, who happened to be on a business visit to the place, that he had “never seen him looking better,” on which he answered, “the Lord is merciful to me, and I have long since tried, as much as poor, human flesh can, to set my house in order.” Returning home, he saw that the fire wanted some fresh wood, and his children being, by this time, grown up, and absent, he went out to get an arm-load. He had, however, scarcely laid it on the hand-irons, and was stretching out his palms to warm them, as the logs snapped and crackled into a merry blaze, when he suddenly fell over in his chair, and was dead before his wife could reach his side. The physician pronounced the cause of his sudden demise to be a disease of the heart. He was buried in the grave-yard at Sweetwater, in the spot he had mentioned to Major Gordon; and the leaves rustled, the birds sang, and the flowers blossomed over him, as he had desired. His farm passed long since into other hands. Lately it has been abandoned to the forest, which is growing up, wild and rank, on the fields where the patriarch tilled the soil, and close around the hearth where he offered his morning and evening prayers. Mother earth has claimed not only his own ashes, but even “the place that knew him.” His memory, however, still lives, and he is yet traditionally known, in his native region, as a mighty hunter, who left no successor.

Mrs. Warren and Maggy are the only persons of whom it remains to speak. The former was characteristic to the last, and died at a good old age, about the period that Louis the Sixteenth, to use her own phrase, “suffered.” In fact, the good lady never recovered from the blow, which the execution of that monarch inflicted on her heart. She had, originally, almost detested him, because he had taken sides against King George; for Mrs. Warren lived and died a tory. But when what she called “the canaille” obtained the ascendancy in Paris; when Lafayette carried the king and queen in triumph from Versailles; and when the monarchy itself fell on the fatal tenth of August, she became as violent a friend of the dethroned king as she had ever been his enemy. The trial and execution of the monarch smote her heart to its core. She could talk of nothing else. The bloody deed, in fact, brought second childhood upon her. And when, a few months after, Marie Antoinette herself was so brutally led to the scaffold, Mrs. Warren gave up the ghost, declaring that all order was lost, that birth was no more respected, and that the world was coming to an end; adding that “she had known it would happen all along, she had felt certain something dreadful would occur.” In her will, she left what little she had saved to be equally divided between Maggy and “her cousin, Lord Alvanley,” thus paying tithe of mint to affection and of cummin to rank.

Maggy grew up all that her friends could have desired, and finally made what everybody admitted was a brilliant match. It was, in truth, more lastingly brilliant than such unions generally are; for it was one of real esteem on both sides, and not a mere marriage of convenience. Her husband was a wealthy Virginia planter, who spent his time on his estates, devoting it to the improvement of his numerous servants: a man, who, though wealthy and well-born beyond most, considered it his duty to labor in his sphere for the interests of his race, and despise no man, however humble, poor, or degraded. In Maggy he found a help-meet, in the full sense of that good old Saxon word; a companion, a counsellor, and co-worker, who “smiled when he smiled, and wept when he wept.” If we had not already reached the limits of our story, or if we should ever again take up the pen, we should be tempted to describe the married life of Maggy, in order to show that all romance does not cease when the nuptial knot is tied, and that there is a bliss of domestic life as perfect as the raptures of an Amanda Malvina or a Lord Mortimer.

The whole of that section of New Jersey in which the events of our story occurred, has greatly changed since the period of which we write. Sweetwater itself is in decay; the Forks is in ruins; and vast portions of the original forest have fallen before the woodman’s axe. A railroad runs close to the place where the hut of the refugee stood; the scream of the locomotive is fast driving away the few deer left in the region. As we send these sheets to press, we notice that a land company is in operation in the neighborhood, and is issuing proposals to furnish “cheap homesteads,” according to the approved fashion of these modern associations. All things have changed. If the author has succeeded in describing, however faintly, a region, a society, and a state of manners already nearly eradicated, he will be content to let the genius of improvement complete the work of destruction, and forever remove all traces of the ruder, but more picturesque past.