troubled the corn but little, and were more
reserved of their mannerless clack. The fowls could repose at night
without fear of foxes; and lambs might wander in the wide woods
pasture, and lie down unharmed by wolves.

It could not be denied however that the fields and Woods were less
cheerful, if they were more safe. Some could not sense the change,
except in an increase of harvests, cattle and fowls; others again, more
spiritual in feeling, hearing and sight, discerned a gloom in the air,
and a gloom on every scene, that seemed ominous of woe. Fanny Fabens
took all that gloom to her heart, and she seemed another being. Her
nature was glad and joyous, as a grove full of robins; but now she grew
sad, and wept and moaned, where once she laughed and sang. She could
hardly account for all her grief; she seemed to inhale it from the air,
imbibe it from the light, and taste it in the breath of the woods, and
the odor of the flowers.

But the death of the birds she knew was the beginning of her sorrows.
She wept the loss of her favorite robin, from the ash tree in the
middle meadow; and it was no longer a bliss, but a grief, to lie in
that lovely shade, and sing her jocund songs, and scent the clover
blooms. She missed the little sparrow that had come three years in
succession, and reared three broods in a season, from a nest in the
honeysuckle that curtained her window. She missed the robins from the
cherry-trees, and the cherries palled on her tongue. She missed the
bluebirds from the cornfield, and the yellow-birds from the flax; she
missed the meadow-larks from the lawns, and the quails from the oats
and wheat; she missed the bobolinks from the hayfields, and the jays
from the girdling; she missed the ground-birds from the pastures, and
thrushes and sweet swamp-robins from the woods; and the poor girl
wandered about for months very sad and lonely, singing no songs and
sharing no delights.

Mrs. Fabens felt the bereavement quite as keenly as Fanny, and she
declared, if the ox-heart cherries were fairer and more abundant now,
their sweetness was bitter to her taste, and it seemed like devouring
so much beauty and song to eat them; for beauty had been banished and
song silenced, to bring them to such a yield. Fabens could not deny
that the gloom invaded his heart also, and he took no comfort in the
cherries, while he missed the music of the birds, and missed the songs
of joy that the birds prompted Fanny to sing