124 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



Cupid had not been blindfold, he would no more have 

 thought of taking aim at him than a schoolboy of 

 shooting his favourite arrow against the wall of a 

 fives-court ; and how that promiscuous young archer 

 made his dart to stick in the ducal granite must 

 remain for ever among the " things not generally 

 known." Never since Eve had the world seen such a 

 proof of love's omnipotence, as when he sent our grim 

 lord a-courting. No weaker influence ever could have 

 taught that cold, pale face to smile, to smile and to 

 beam with a happy brightness, as the snow sparkles 

 in the sun. But how he ever remembered her name, 

 or brought himself to proffer those little tendernesses 

 which are usual upon these occasions those touches 

 of nature which make the whole world kin is to me 

 a complete perplexity, an unreality as astonishing as 

 though I were to see the ghost of Hamlet's father with 

 his arm round the waist of Jessica. 



Poor Jessica ! she came to us as joyous as a thrush 

 in summer, and she sang awhile blithely and sweetly 

 in the tomb of Hamlet's father. But when he resumed, 

 as he shortly did, his old sepulchral ways, a chill 

 struck the heart of our singing-bird, and all her 

 mirthful music was changed into a plaint and wail. 

 She had come from a home of love and cheerfulness, 

 and she drooped in his arctic atmosphere, as an orchid 

 would drop in an ice-house. 



" For a trouble weighed upon her, 



And perplexed her night and morn, 

 With the burden of an honour, 

 ^Jnto which she was not born." 



