The little mansion had its fill of sunshine;
The western windows overlooked the Hudson
Where the great city's traffic vexed the tide;
The front received the Orient's early flush.
Here dwelt three beings, who the neighbors said
Were husband, wife, and daughter; and indeed
There was no sign that they were otherwise.
Their name was Percival; they lived secluded,
Saw no society, except some poor
Old pensioner who came for food or help;
Though, when fair days invited, they would take
The omnibus and go to see the paintings
At the Academy; or hear the music
At opera or concert; then, in summer,
A visit to the seaside or the hills
Would oft entice them.

Percival had reached
His threescore years and five, but stood erect
As if no touch of age had chilled him yet.
Simple in habit, studious how to live
In best conformity with laws divine,—
Impulsive, yet by trial taught to question
All impulses, affections, appetites,
At Reason's bar,—two objects paramount
Seemed steadily before him; one, to find
The eternal truth, showing the constant right
In politics, in social life, in morals,—
The other, to apply all love and wisdom
To education of his child—of Linda.

Yet, if with eye anointed, you could look
On that benign and tranquil countenance,
You might detect the lines which Passion leaves
Long after its volcano is extinct
And flowers conceal its lava. Percival
Was older than his consort, twenty years;
Yet were they fitly mated; though, with her,
Time had dealt very gently, leaving face
And rounded form still youthful, and unmarred
By one uncomely outline; hardly mingling
A thread of silver in her chestnut hair
That affluent needed no deceiving braid.
Framed for maternity the matron seemed:
Thrice had she been a mother; but the children,
The first six winters of her union brought,
A boy and girl, were lost to her at once
By a wall's falling on them, as they went,
Heedless of danger, hand in hand, to school.
To either parent terrible the blow!
But, three years afterward, when Linda came,
With her dark azure eyes and golden hair,
It was as if a healing angel touched
The parents' wound, and turned their desolation
Into a present paradise, revealing
Two dear ones, beckoning from the spirit-land,
And one, detaining them, with infant grasp,
Feeble, yet how resistless! here below.

And so there was great comfort in that household:
And those unwhispered longings both had felt
At times, that they might pass to other scenes
Where Love would find its own, were felt no more:
For Linda grew in beauty every day;
Beauty not only of the outward mould,
Sparkling in those dear eyes, and on the wind
Tossing those locks of gold, but beauty born,
In revelations flitting o'er the face,
From the soul's inner symmetry; from love
Too deep and pure to utter, had she words;
From the divine desire to know; to prove
All objects brought within her dawning ken;
From frolic mirth, not heedless but most apt;
From sense of conscience, shown in little things
So early; and from infant courtesy
Charming and debonair.

The parents said,
While the glad tears shone brimming in their eyes,
"Oh! lacking love and best experience[1]
Are those who tell us that the purity
And innocence of childhood are delusion;
Or that, so far as they exist, they show
The absence of all mind; no impulses
Save those of selfish passion moving it!
And that, by nature desperately wicked,
The child learns good through evil; having no
Innate ideas, no inborn will, no bias.
Here, in this infant, is our confutation!
O self-sufficing physiologist,
Who, grubbing in the earth, hast missed the stars,
We ask no other answer to thy creed
Than this, the answer heaven and earth supply."

Now sixteen summers had our Linda seen,
And grown to be a fair-haired, winsome maid,
In shape and aspect promising to be
A softened repetition of her mother;
And yet some traits from the paternal side
Gave to the head an intellectual grace
And to the liquid eyes a power reserved,
Brooding awhile in tender gloom, and then
Flashing emotion, as some lofty thought,
Some sight of pity, or some generous deed,
Kindled a ready sympathy whose tears
Fell on no barren purpose; for with Linda
To feel, to be uplifted, was to act;
Her sorest trials being when she found
How far the wish to do outran the power.
Often would Percival observe his child,
And study to divine if in the future
Of that organization, when mature,
There should prevail the elements that lead
Woman to find the crowning charm of life
In the affections of a happy marriage,
Or if with satisfactions of the mind
And the Æsthetic faculty, the aims
Of art and letters, the pursuits of trade,
Linda might find the fresh activities
He craved for her, and which forecasting care
Might possibly provide.

His means were small,
Merged in a life-annuity which gave
All that he held as indispensable
To sanative conditions in a home:
Good air, good influences, proper food.
By making his old wardrobe do long service
He saved the wherewith to get faithful help
From the best teachers in instructing Linda;
And she was still the object uppermost.
Dawned the day fair, for Linda it was fair,
And they all three could ramble in the Park.
If on Broadway the ripe fruit tempted him,
Linda was fond of fruit; those grapes will do
For Linda. Was the music rich and rare?
Linda must hear it. Were the paintings grand?
Linda must see them. So the important thought
Was always Linda; and the mother shared
In all this fond parental providence;
For in her tender pride in the dear girl
There was no room for any selfish thought,
For any jealous balancing of dues.

"My child," said Percival, one summer day,
As he brought in a bunch of snow-white roses,
Ringed with carnations, many-leafed and fragrant,
"Take it, an offering for your birthday; this
Is June the twelfth, a happy day for me."
"How fresh, how beautiful!" said Linda rising
And kissing him on either cheek. "Dear father,
You spoil me for all other care, I fear,
Since none can be like yours."

"Why speak of that?"
He with a start exclaimed; "my care must be
Prolonged till I can see you safely fixed
In an assured and happy womanhood.
Why should it not be so? Though sixty-five,
How well am I, and strong! No, Linda, no;
Dream not of other tendance yet awhile;
My father lived to eighty, and his father
To eighty-five; and I am stronger now
Than they were, at my age."

"Live long!" cried Linda,
"For whom have I to love me, to befriend,
You and my mother gone?"

"Your mother, child?
She should outlive me by some twenty years
At least. God grant, her sweet companionship
May be your strength and light when I'm not here,
My matchless little girl, my precious Linda!"

"Ah! how Love magnifies the thing it loves!"
Smiling she said: "when I look in the glass,
I see a comely Miss; nay, perhaps pretty;
That epithet is her superlative,
So far as person is concerned, I fear.
Grant her a cheerful temper; that she gets
From both her parents.