The beauty and gentleness of disposition by which, in after years, Dorothy Wordsworth developed into such a perfect woman were not absent in her early childhood. Although we know so little, we have abundant testimony that as a child she was fittingly named Dorothea—the gift of God—and that then her life of ministry to her poet-brother began. We can well imagine how the little dark-eyed brunette, sparkling and impulsive damsel as she was, and the only girl in the family, became the darling of the circle. In after years, when her favourite and famous brother had entered on the career which she helped so much to stimulate and to perfect, we find in his poems many allusions to her, as well in her prattling childhood as in her mature years. The sight of a butterfly calls to the poet's mind the pleasures of the early home, the time when he and his little playmate "together chased the butterfly." The kindness of her child heart is told in a few expressive words. He says:—
"A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey;—with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she—God love her!—feared to brush
The dust from off its wings."
The sight of a sparrow's nest, many years after, also served to bring to the poet's remembrance his father's home and his sister's love. The "bright blue eggs" appeared to him "a vision of delight." In them he saw another sparrow's nest, in the years gone by daily visited in company with his little sister.
"Behold, within that leafy shade,
Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight