,
But still indeed I was much shaken,
At last I daily strength did gain,
And oh! at last, away went pain;
At length the doctor thought I might
Stay in the parlor all the night;
I now continue so to do,
Farewell to Nancy and to you.'
"She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night with
the old cry of woe to a mother's heart, 'My head, my head!' Three days
of the dire malady, 'water in the head,' followed, and the end came."
"Soft, silken primrose, fading timelessly."
It is needless, it is impossible, to add anything to this: the fervor,
the sweetness, the flush of poetic ecstasy, the lovely and glowing eye,
the perfect nature of that bright and warm intelligence, that darling
child,--Lady Nairne's words, and the old tune, stealing up from the
depths of the human heart, deep calling unto deep, gentle and strong
like the waves of the great sea hushing themselves to sleep in the dark;
the words of Burns touching the kindred chord, her last numbers "wildly
sweet" traced with thin and eager fingers, already touched by the last
enemy and friend,--_moriens canit_,--and that love which is so soon to
be her everlasting light, is her song's burden to the end.
"She set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LITTLE JAKEY.
BY MRS. S.H. DEKROYFT.
I.
At the time of the opening of this story, there were in the rear of the
New York Institution for the Blind, two small but pleasant parks, full
of trees and winding walks, where the birds sang, and blind boys and
girls ran and played. The little gate between the two parks was usually
left open during school hours, and one bright June morning, while the
sun was drinking up the dews from the leaves and the flowers, I chanced
to be walking there, and I heard the little gate opening and shutting,
opening and shutting; rattle went the chain, then bang went the gate,
until suddenly, as I was passing it, a little voice saluted me, so sweet
and musical and up so high, that for the moment I almost fancied one of
the birds had stopped his song to speak with me.
"I know you. I knows ven you come. Sometimes you tell stories to ze
girls, and I hear you ven I bees dis side."
Going up and putting my hand on the little speak
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