Time flew on; seasons came and went; and still peace brooded, like a
dove, under the roof of Harry and Ruth. Each bright summer morning,
Ruth and the little Daisy,(who already partook of her mother's love for
nature,) rambled, hand in hand, through the woods and fields, with a
wholesome disregard of those city bug-bears, sun, dew, bogs, fences,
briers, and cattle. Wherever a flower opened its blue eye in the rock
cleft; wherever the little stream ran, babbling and sparkling, through
the emerald meadow; where the golden moss piled up its velvet cushion
in the cool woods; where the pretty clematis threw the graceful arms
of youth 'round the gnarled trunk of decay; where the bearded grain,
swaying to and fro, tempted to its death the reaper; where the red and
white clover dotted the meadow grass; or where, in the damp marsh, the
whip-poor-will moaned, and the crimson lobelia nodded its regal crown;
or where the valley smiled in its beauty 'neath the lofty hills,
nestling 'mid its foliage the snow-white cottages; or where the cattle
dozed under the broad, green branches, or bent to the glassy lake to
drink; or where, on the breezy hill-tops, the voices of childhood came
up, sweet and clear, as the far-off hymning of angels,--there, Ruth and
her soul's child loved to linger.
It was beautiful, yet fearful, to mark the kindling eye of the child;
to see the delicate flush come and go on her marble cheek, and to feel
the silent pressure of her little hand, when this alone could tell the
rapture she had no words to express.
Ah, Ruth! gaze not so dotingly on those earnest eyes. Know'st thou not,
The rose that sweetest doth awake,
Will soonest go to rest?