Many a gracious kindness they found means and opportunities of doing to the peasantry, and the dull, cowed expression on many of the faces was for them transfigured into a trusting smile of welcome. The heavy, universal shadow of slavery weighed indeed on all the toilers; yet a hope dawned on Ethne of penetrating it with the light of Christian redemption and human brotherhood. Thus for the most part those happy days were for both of them a bathing of body, soul, and spirit in the fountain of youth, in the beauty and strength and freedom of nature.
“I was a glad and sunny child,
And in the Fount of Life,
Which, gushing from its hidden cave,
In many a clear and sparkling wave,
Each with sweet music rife,
Wells in the morning sunlight up
E’en to its stony brim,
Dropping into each flowery cup
That trembles on the rim;