With young
Quincy it was so, only much more so. It fell to his lot to be adopted
by an entire town. Its residents had been, with few exceptions, his
father's friends. The sad story of his father's loss at sea was known
to all, and the town's heart warmed towards him; the town's arms were
open to embrace him, and care for him.
To his Aunt Huldah Pettingill he seemed as though sent from another
world. He was her husband's nephew, and hers--but there was a closer
tie acknowledged within her own heart, and kept there as a precious
secret. He was Quincy Adams Sawyer's son--the son of the man who had
taught her what love was. It had been a bitter lesson, for when her
heart was awakened, it was but to find that the one who had played
upon its sensitive strings did not love her, and that her duty was to
another who did love her. She had been a true and loving wife with no
unsatisfied heart-longings, but--
"You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
So Huldah Mason still kept within a secret corner of her heart a fond
remembrance of happy days gone by. And now Quincy's son was one of
her family; she could be a mother to him and no one would have a
right to question her manifestations of affection. It is often that
the human heart thus finds solace for past sad experiences or
suffering.
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