“Early impressions seldom fade from the mind, but become more vivid with the increase of our years, and so had the sentiments which my father had taught me. “The next farm to that of my father’s, belonged to Charles Worthington, who had but one child, a daughter, about three years younger than I was. Even yet, after a lapse of fifty years, the blood bounds through my veins, and my heart heaves with an unusual emotion, as I think of that fair girl. Ah, she was surpassing fair, but yet her beauty was rivalled by her goodness of heart and her amiability. With a skin of the fairest white, deep blue eyes, forehead high and expansive, and features altogether classical, she was one whom any one could love; and, excuse me, my son, for indulging in reflections which may be of no interest to you, but these pictures, when they do arise in the memory, are still intensely vivid, while their being so long ago enacted, gives each small incident an interest with me, which to you may appear unworthy of a single thought. “Lucy Worthington and I met, and we _loved_, and it was that deep love which casts its hue over all our future actions. It was the first love—when those whirlwind passions of the mind are first awakened to activity, and, like the sun rising over the landscape, throws its hues upon every object, and tinges them of its own peculiar color. “For months Lucy and I were almost inseparable companions—we consumed the greater part of our days wandering in the fields and woods, gathering flowers and listening to each other’s words; and my greatest ambition was to please her, my only thoughts to elicit a smile of love from her bright eye. Thus passed away the days till the destroyer came. “It was a bright morning in summer. The sun had just risen, and I was gazing upon its early rays, as they threw the shadows of the dancing foliage through the window upon the opposite wall; when I heard a distant crack of a gun, which was immediately followed by another, then another, and then others, in such quick succession that I could not count them. “Suspecting that all was not right at our neighbor’s house, I sprang out of bed, hurriedly drew on my clothes, and, without speaking to any of our family, hastened over to Worthington’s. Before I reached the house I saw a blue smoke hanging over it; but not a human being was to be met; all was as lonely as a city of the dead. I leaped the fence and hurried to the house, and, oh! what a scene was suddenly presented to my sight! The father, the mother, and their only child, were stretched on the floor and weltering in their blood. The parents were dead, but the daughter—although evidently dying—still retained her speech and consciousness.