nterchanging with another image of her form, with the
snow of death on cheek and forehead. This reminiscence had remained
among the things of which the Doctor was always conscious, but had never
breathed a word, through the whole of his long life,--a sprig of
sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him tenderer and purer than
other men, who entertain no such follies. And the sight of the shrub
often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, as if her spirit
were in the sun-lights of the garden, quivering into view and out of it.
And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent forth a
strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of aged and
decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up grandpapa's
flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, Pansie, poison!
Fling it away, child!"

And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little
girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as
apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of
mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was
ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this
fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten.

"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble
into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems
to affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back.

And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more
literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate
communicated with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little
Pansie's track there was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant
that afternoon. Pansie, however, fled onward with outstretched arms,
half in fear, half in fun, plying her round little legs with wonderful
promptitude, as if to escape Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir
Dolliver, and happily avoiding the ominous pitfall that lies in every
person's path, till, hearing a groan from her pursuer, she looked over
her shoulder, and saw that poor grandpapa had stumbled over one of the
many hillocks. She then suddenly wrinkled up her little visage, and sent
forth a full-breathed roar of sympathy and alarm.

"Grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little Pansie, amid her sobs.

"Kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman,
recollecting her remedy, an