m and buzz of the
myriads of insects who danced away their lives in the glorious day; they
heard the swaying of the mighty woods in the soft but resistless breeze,
and then again once more burst forth the merry jests and the shouts of
childhood; and again the elder ones resumed their happy talk, as they
lay or sat "under the greenwood tree." Fresh parties came dropping in;
some laden with wild flowers--almost with branches of hawthorn, indeed;
while one or two had made prizes of the earliest dog-roses, and had cast
away campion, stitchwort, ragged robin, all to keep the lady of the
hedges from being obscured or hidden by the community.

One after another drew near to Franky, and looked on with interest as he
lay sorting the flowers given to him. Happy parents stood by, with their
household bands around them, in health and comeliness, and felt the
sad prophecy of those shrivelled limbs, those wasted fingers, those
lamp-like eyes, with their bright, dark lustre. His mother was too
eagerly watching his happiness to read the meaning of those grave looks,
but Libbie saw them and understood them; and a chill shudder went
through her, even on that day, as she thought on the future.

"Ay! I thought we should give you a start!"

A start they did give, with their terrible slap on Libbie's back, as she
sat idly grouping flowers, and following out her sorrowful thoughts. It
was the Dixons. Instead of keeping their holiday by lying in bed, they
and their children had roused themselves, and had come by the omnibus to
the nearest point. For an instant the meeting was an awkward one, on
account of the feud between Margaret Hall and Mrs. Dixon, but there was
no long resisting of kindly mother Nature's soothings, at that holiday
time, and in that lonely tranquil spot; or if they could have been
unheeded, the sight of Franky would have awed every angry feeling
into rest, so changed was he since the Dixons had last seen him; and
since he had been the Puck or Robin Goodfellow of the neighbourhood,
whose marbles were always rolling under other people's feet, and whose
top-strings were always hanging in nooses to catch the unwary. Yes, he,
the feeble, mild, almost girlish-looking lad, had once been a merry,
happy rogue, and as such often cuffed by Mrs. Dixon, the very Mrs. Dixon
who now stood gazing with the tears in her eyes. Could she, in sight of
him, the changed, the fading, keep up a quarrel with his mother?

"How long hast thou been