CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



One evening, returning to the hut with her usual 

 song, she danced up to her father's face on his rushy 

 bed, and it was cold in death. If she shrieked — if she 

 fainted — there was but one Ear that heard, one Eye 

 that saw her in her swoon. Not now floating light like 

 a small moving cloud unwilling to leave the flowery 

 braes, though it be to melt in heaven, but driven 

 along like a shroud of flying mist before the tempest, 

 she came upon us in the midst of that dreary moss; 

 and at the sound of our voice, fell down with clasped 

 hands at our feet — "My father's dead!'' Had the hut 

 put already on the strange, dim, desolate look of 

 mortality.? For people came walking fast down the 

 braes, and in a little while there was a group round 

 us, and we bore her back again to her dwelling in our 

 arms. As for us, we had been on our way to bid the 

 fair creature and her father farewell. How could she 

 have lived — an utter orphan — in such a world! The 

 holy power that is in Innocence would for ever have 

 remained with her; but Innocence longs to be away, 

 when her sister Joy has departed; and "'tis sorrowful 

 to see the one on earth, when the other has gone to 

 Heaven! This sorrow none of us had long to see; 

 for though a flower, when withered at the root, and 

 doomed ere eve to perish, may yet look to the careless 

 eye the same as when it blossomed in its pride — yet 

 its leaves, still green, are not as once they were — its 

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