246 THE DREAMER'S MISSION. 



Bring fruits, rich fruits, that blush on every bough, 

 Bending above the traveller's weary brow 



And wooing him to taste : 

 Bring fruits, — methinks I never knew how sweet 

 The joys that every day our senses greet, 



Till now, in life's swift waste. 



Bring fruits, rich fruits ; earth's fairest gifts are vain 

 To minister relief to the dull pain 



That weighs upon my heart ; 

 Yet bring me fruits and flowers, — they still have power 

 To cheer, if not prolong, life's little hour : 



Bring flowers ere I depart. 



It was Katharine's gentle hand which daily placed beside 

 him the flowers for which he pined ; it was she who watched 

 his failing strength of body, and who rejoiced in his awakening 

 powers of mind. In vain did the world claim her as its votary ; 

 she had found her true position, she had learned the joy of 

 ministry and she could stoop to no meaner pleasure. Love, 

 deep, deathless but pure as the heaven where alone it could hope 

 for the fulness of its reward, filled her whole heart. In the gay- 

 scenes of worldly allurement, she had been cold, proud and 

 insensible to such affections. The gifted and the wealthy, the 

 graceful and the gay, had wooed her in the words of tenderness, 

 but her soul had uttered no response. Yet now, in the cham- 

 ber of sickness and death, her heart had given itself, unsought 

 and almost unappreciated, to the frail, feeble, suffering being 

 who looked up to her for comfort and sympathy in his hour of 

 trial. 



