"Sir,--This is to inform you that your mother, Mrs. Locke, died this
morning, a sensible sinner, not without assurance of her election: and
that her funeral is fixed for Wednesday, the 29th instant.
"The humble servant of the Lord's people,
"J. WIGGINTON."
CHAPTER XIX.
SHORT AND SAD.
I shall pass over the agonies of the next few days. There is
self-exenteration enough and to spare in my story, without dilating on
them. They are too sacred to publish, and too painful, alas! even to
recall. I write my story, too, as a working man. Of those emotions which
are common to humanity, I shall say but little--except when it is necessary
to prove that the working man has feelings like the rest of his kind,
But those feelings may, in this case, be supplied by the reader's own
imagination. Let him represent them to himself as bitter, as remorseful as
he will, he will not equal the reality. True, she had cast me off; but had
I not rejoiced in that rejection which should have been my shame? True, I
had fed on the hope of some day winning reconciliation, by winning fame;
but before the fame had arrived, the reconciliation had become impossible.
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