'Judge for yourself, dear grandfather: look round, and see how
quiet and still it is. We are alone together, and may ramble where
we like. Not safe! Could I feel easy--did I feel at ease--when
any danger threatened you?'
'True, too,' he answered, pressing her hand, but still looking
anxiously about. 'What noise was that?'
'A bird,' said the child, 'flying into the wood, and leading the
way for us to follow.' You remember that we said we would walk in
woods and fields, and by the side of rivers, and how happy we would
be--you remember that? But here, while the sun shines above our
heads, and everything is bright and happy, we are sitting sadly
down, and losing time. See what a pleasant path; and there's the
bird--the same bird--now he flies to another tree, and stays to
sing. Come!'
When they rose up from the ground, and took the shady track which
led them through the wood, she bounded on before, printing her tiny
footsteps in the moss, which rose elastic from so light a pressure
and gave it back as mirrors throw off breath; and thus she lured
the old man on, with many a backward look and merry beck, now
pointing stealthily to some lone bird as it perched and twittered
on a branch that strayed across their path, now stopping to listen
to the songs that broke the happy silence, or watch the sun as it
trembled through the leaves, and stealing in among the ivied trunks
of stout old trees, opened long paths of light.
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