Dalton, oh shades of poetry
and song! imagine Ernest Dalton poring over a soapy wash account. I
mention it, and Arthur joins me in the merry laugh the bare thought of
it provokes.
Mr. Dalton, however, was always our good, kind friend, while he
remained in our town. To the spirit of emigration that pervaded our
cities some years later we owe his loss. He stole away without letting
any one know of his definite purpose, and buried himself in the
solitude of the North-West prairies.
For a time he was a punctual correspondent, but there came a breach
and a pause, during which we learned of his serious illness, and
subsequently of his death. To the end he had remembered us, and no one
grieved for him more earnestly, more deeply than Arthur and I.
Some weeks after the announcement of his death had been made known to
us, I received a little box which had been found among his personal
belongings, addressed to me. It contained the identical locket which
had been in my possession once before, and which was now bequeathed to
me with injunctions to wear it faithfully, in memory of the two
departed ones, whose time-worn pictures lay safely stowed away within.
His money and other properties he bequeathed to the little fair-haired
prattler now playing at my knee. We have called him Ernest Dalton
Campbell, but Arthur says we must keep that until he is big, and in
the meantime has christened him "Toddles," which is very absurd to my
thinking, but to which, with all the edifying obedience of a Christian
wife I am bound to submit now, as well as in every matter of greater
or less moment.
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