KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



209 



A CHILD'S HEART. 



That heart, methinks. 

 Were of strange mould, which kept no cherish' d print 

 (jf earlier, happier times, when life was fresh, 

 And Loye and Innocence made holiday. 



IIillhouse. 



ALF THE ENJOYMENTS OF LIFE, 



— aye, at least one half of 

 them, consist in a retrospect 

 of those by -gone happy hours 

 when innocence held pos- 

 session of our gradually ex- 

 panding ideas, and we impul- 

 sively obeyed the dictates and 

 promptings of honest old Nature. Alas ! 

 how soon is an air-tight stopper put upon us, 

 ere yet we are well out of our nurse's arms ! 

 No sooner do we begin to ask questions, than 

 we are silenced by a freezing *' H-u-s-h !" 



In spite of this, we are determined to turn 

 over to-day one of the first pages of our Book 

 of Life, and to let our thoughts find vent in 

 print. There is a charm about little children 

 which delights us ; and the absence they 

 evince of all guile causes us often to make 

 them our companions, whilst we turn in dis- 

 gust from the world at large. Little good- 

 fellowship is to be experienced there ! 



There is nothing in Nature more sus- 

 ceptible than the heart of a child, be it in 

 boy or girl. Few of us care to inquire 

 deeply into its joys and sorrows, though 

 occasionally they will force themselves upon 

 us ] yet do we all marvel now and then 

 at what we both hear and see. If we 

 would think more, we should know more. 

 We have been highly delighted of late, 

 whilst perusing in its progress the trans- 

 lation of the works of Dr. Gall, now 

 appearing in our pages. We have pondered 

 much on his observations of the human 

 heart in its early stages of life — showing 

 how much more " forward," from circum- 

 stances, some children's animal passions are 

 than others— partaking, to a certain extent, of 

 the emotions generally known by adults only. 

 _ In our youth, we were ourself a most 

 singular example of this curious fact, as we 

 shall presently explain. Our heart was no 

 stranger to hope, fear, and love, ere we had 

 reached the age of seven years. The thoughts 

 that then passed through our mind, and the 

 scenes of excitement to which, from circum- 

 stances, we were at that time subjected, have 

 often recurred to us since ; and do often recur 

 to us now. We fell in love with the sweet 

 face and person of a most lovely girl in her 

 seventeenth year, before we had numbered 

 seven summers. We loved that face, that 

 figure, far better than our own life. Yes, 

 we lived upon her smile. We grew upon 

 the words that fell from her cherry lips. We 

 were thinking of her, morning, noon, and 

 night. 



We make these few remarks for the pur- 

 pose of introducing a somewhat similar case 

 recorded in " Villette, v an unusually interest • 

 ing novel, by Currer Bell. Here, however, 

 a little girl was the heroine, and her age did 

 not exceed six years. With her, as with us, 

 " contact " had worked the spell ; albeit the 

 object of her affection — a handsome school- 

 boy, named Graham, was of a cooler tem- 

 perament than herself. He liked Paulina, 

 but did not love her ; whereas she doated on 

 him with all the fondness of a grown-up 

 woman. 



We cannot but believe that this little epi- 

 sode has its origin in fact. It reads like 

 gospel truth. Let us then listen to Miss 

 Lucy Snowe, the teacher in the family, whilst 

 she tells us all about Paulina and Mrs. 

 Bretton's handsome son Graham : — 



In the evening, at the moment Graham's 

 entrance was heard below, I found her at my side. 

 She began to arrange a locket-riband about my 

 neck , she displayed and replaced the comb in my 

 hair. While thus busied, Graham entered. 



1 Tell him by -and- by,' she whispered ; ' tell him 

 I am going.' 



In the course of tea-time, I made the desired 

 communication. 



'Polly going? What a pity! Dear little 

 Mousie, I shall be sorry to lose her. She must 

 come to us again, mamma.' 



And, hastily swallowing his tea, he took a 

 candle and a small table to himself, and his books, 

 and was soon buried in study. ' Little Mousie ' 

 crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at 

 his feet, her face to the floor. Mute and motion- 

 less, she kept that post and position till bed-time. 

 Once I saw Graham — wholly unconscious of her 

 proximity — push her with his restless foot. She 

 receded an inch or two. A minute after, one little 

 hand stole out from beneath her face, to which it 

 had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless 

 foot. When summoned by her nurse, she rose and 

 departed very obediently, having bade us all a 

 subdued good-night. 



I will not say that I dreaded going to bed an 

 hour later ; yet I certainly went with an unquiet 

 anticipation that I should find that child in no 

 peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct 

 was but fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold 

 and vigilant, perched like a white bird on the 

 outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost 

 her. She was not to be managed like another 

 child. She, however, accosted me. As I closed 

 the door, and put the light on the dressing-table 

 she turned to me with these words : ' I cannot — 

 cannot sleep ; and in this way I cannot — cannot 

 live ! ' 



I asked her what ailed her. 



1 Dedful miz-er-y 1 ' said she, with her piteous 

 lisp. 



• Shall I call Mrs. Bret ton ? ' 



'That is downright silly,' was her impatient 

 reply, and indeed, I well knew that if she had 

 heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she would 

 have nestled quiet as a mouse under the bed- 

 clothes. 



Vol.IIL— 14. 



