30 



HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



were standing there in the late evening sunlight by 

 that primrose bank, looking down on the little 

 flesh - coloured mite in its scant clothing of black 

 down, fading out of life on its cold green leaf. But 

 what was said did not fail of its effect, so that my 

 young tender - hearted hearers, who had begun to 

 listen with moist eyes, secretly accusing me perhaps of 

 want of feeling, were content in the end to let it be 

 to go away and leave it to its fate in that mysterious 

 green world we, too, live in and do not understand, in 

 which life and death and pleasure and pain are inter- 

 woven light and shade. 



