ne white
clover-flower on which she saw working the silent bee. Her father looked
too often sad, and she feared--though what it was, she imagined not even
in dreams--that some great misery must have befallen him before they
came to live in the glen. And such, too, she had heard from a chance
whisper, was the belief of their neighbours. But momentary the shadows
on the light of childhood! Nor was she insensible to her own beauty,
that with the innocence it enshrined combined to make her happy; and
first met her own eyes every morning, when most beautiful, awakening
from the hushed awe of her prayers. She was clad in russet like a
cottager's child; but her air spoke of finer breeding than may be met
with among those mountains--though natural grace accompanies there many
a maiden going with her pitcher to the well--and gentle blood and old
flows there in the veins of now humble men--who, but for the decay of
families once high, might have lived in halls, now dilapidated, and
scarcely distinguished through masses of ivy from the circumjacent
rocks!

The child stole close behind her father, and kissing his cheek, said,
"Were there ever such lovely flowers seen in Ulswater before, father? I
do not believe that they will ever die." And she put them in his breast.
Not a smile came to his countenance--no look of love--no faint
recognition--no gratitude for the gift which at other times might haply
have drawn a tear. She stood abashed in the sternness of his eyes,
which, though fixed on her, seemed to see her not; and feeling that her
glee was mistimed--for with such gloom she was not unfamiliar--the child
felt as if her own happiness had been sin, and, retiring into a glade
among the broom, sat down and wept.

"Poor wretch, better far that she never had been born."

The old man looked on his friend with compassion, but with no surprise;
and only said, "God will dry up her tears."

These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone
of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first
looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though
he heard it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejaculated for her sake
a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was
ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief--and the
old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father,
again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was