Watch him."
The trees had become dwarfed and scattered; they were getting out of the
region of trees; the real forest zone was now below them, and they saw
they were emerging toward a bald elevated down, and that a few hundred
yards before them was a dead tree, on the highest branch of which sat an
eagle.
"The dog has stopped," said Cecil; "the end is near."
"See," said Sam, "there is a handkerchief under the tree."
"That is the boy himself," said Cecil.
They were up to him and off in a moment. There he lay dead and stiff,
one hand still grasping the flowers he had gathered on his last happy
play-day, and the other laid as a pillow between the soft cold cheek and
the rough cold stone. His midsummer holiday was over, his long journey
was ended. He had found out at last what lay beyond the shining river he
had watched so long.
That is the whole story, General Halbert; and who should know it better
than I, Geoffry Hamlyn?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
GOODY GRACIOUS!
AND THE FORGET-ME-NOT.
BY JOHN NEAL.
Once there was a little bit of a thing,--not more than so high,--and her
name was Ruth Page; but they called her Teenty-Tawnty, for she was the
daintiest little creature you ever saw, with the smoothest hair and the
brightest face; and then she was always playing about, and always happy;
and so the people that lived in that part of the country, when they
heard her laughing and singing all by herself at peep of day, like
little birds alter a shower, and saw her running about in the edge of
the wood after tulips and butterflies, or tumbling head-over-heels in
the long rich grass by the river-side, with her little pet lamb or her
two white pigeons always under her feet, or listening to the wild bees
in the apple-blossoms, with her sweet mouth "all in a tremble," and her
happy eyes brimful of sunshine,--they used to say that she was no child
at all, or no child of earth, but a fairy-gift, and that she must have
been dropped into her mother's lap, like a handful of flowers, when she
was half asleep; and so they wouldn't call her Ruth Page,--no indeed,
that they wouldn't!--but they called her little Teenty-Tawnty, or the
Little Fairy; and they used to bring her fairy tales to read, till she
couldn't bear to read anything else, and wanted to be a fairy herself.
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