They seemed almost about to turn to stone, and join the silent company around them.
In good sooth, such a fate was imminent, when the happening of a joyful event averted it.
A year had passed since the last sculptor had gone to join the shadowy caravan which moves forever across the desert of Eternal Silence, when his seven sad-faced daughters were fairly startled by an infant’s cry.
But look!
Their widowed mother stands before them with a babe nestled in her arms.
It is a son!
The joyful tidings can only creep from family to family.
Alas! it was too late to call them back to old-time customs and habits, too late to start their blood again in old-time bounding, leaping course through their veins.
They were a changed people!
True, their happiness came again, but it was not the same. They could smile and laugh, but it was scarcely more than faces of marble moved by some mysterious power. They could talk, but so slowly fell the words that it almost seemed some statue spoke amid the leafy coverts of the island. They could move, but snail or tortoise outstripped them with ease.