ing, once and for ever, to thee
and thine a shadow and no more, yet lean thy head towards us that we may
lay our hands on it and bless it--and promise, as thou art growing up
here, sometimes to think of the voice that spake to thee by the
Birk-tree well. Love, fear, and serve God, as the Bible teaches--and
whatever happens thee, quake not, but put thy trust in Heaven.

Do not be afraid of him, sweet one! O'Bronte would submit to be flayed
alive rather than bite a child: see, he offers you a paw--take it
without trembling; nay, he will let thee ride on his back, my pretty
dear--won't thou, O'Bronte?--and scamper with thee up and down the
knolls like her coal-black charger rejoicing to bear the Fairy Queen.
Thou tellest us thy father and mother, sisters and brothers, all are
dead; yet with a voice cheerful as well as plaintive. Smile--laugh--
sing--as thou wert doing a minute ago--as thou hast done for many a
morning--and shalt do for many a morning more on thy way to the well--in
the woods--on the braes--in the house,--often all by thyself when the
old people are out of doors not far off--or when sometimes they have for
a whole day been from home out of the glen. Forget not our words--and no
evil can befall thee that may not, weak as thou art, be borne,--and
nothing wicked that is allowed to walk the earth will ever be able to
hurt a hair on thy head.

My stars! what a lovely little animal! A tame fawn, by all that is
wild--kneeling down--to drink--no--no--at his lady's feet. The collie
catched it--thou sayest--on the edge of the Auld wood--and by the time
its wounds were cured, it seemed to have forgot its mother, and soon
learnt to follow thee about to far-off places quite out of sight of
this--and to play gamesome tricks like a creature born among human
dwellings. What! it dances like a kid--does it--and sometimes you put a
garland of wildflowers round its neck--and pursue it like a huntress, as
it pretends to be making its escape into the forest?

Look, child, here is a pretty green purse for you, that opens and shuts
with a spring--so--and in it there is a gold coin, called a sovereign,
and a crooked sixpence. Don't blush--that was a graceful curtsy. Keep
the crooked sixpence for good-luck, and you never will want. With the
yellow fellow buy a Sunday gown and a pair of Sunday shoes, and what
else you like; and now--you two, lead the way--try a race to the
door--and old Christopher North will carry the pitcher--bal