The sunlight warmed and tranquilized
the exquisite form that had been entering its shuddering protest
against the chill and corruption of the grave. The south wind,
laden with fresh woodland odors, fanned her cheeks, and whispered
that there were flowers blooming that she could not see, and that
the future also might reveal joys now hidden and unknown, if she
would only be patient. Every rustling leaf that fluttered in the
gale, but did not fall, called to her with its tiny voice: "Cling
to your place, as we do, till the frost of age or the blight of
disease brings the end in God's own time and way." A partridge with
her brood rustled by along the edge of the forest, and the poor
girl imagined she saw in the parent bird, as she led forward her
plump little bevy, the pride and complacency of a happy motherhood,
which now would never be hers; and from the depths of her woman's
heart came nature's protest. Then her heavy eyes were attracted
by the sport of two gray squirrels that were racing to the top of
one tree, scrambling down another, falling and catching again, and
tumbling over each other in their mad excitement. She felt that,
at her age, their exuberant life and enjoyment should be a type of
her own, but their wild, innocent fun, in contrast with her despair,
became so unendurable that she sprang up and frightened them away.
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