"Phillip, you are troubled, and you are hiding it from me. Dearest and best of brothers, can I not help you? I am not the little child you think me. Oh! Phillip; I can be a woman when I am needed," and the large bright eyes filled with tears.
"What nonsense, Puss. What an imaginary little creature you are. Now please drive away such silly thoughts, and when Brother Phillip is in need of sympathy he will ask none other than his little sunbeam."
The young man then kissed back the sunny smiles and listened to the playful prattle which fell from the bright lips. Then he thought of the lines—
"The tear down childhood's cheek that flows
Is like the dew-drop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by
And waves the bush, the flower is dry."
"What have you there, Puss?" said Phillip, glancing at the volumes in the child's hand.
"I can scarcely tell you, but I believe they are good, for Miss
Lewis recommended them."
Mr. Lawson took up one of the volumes. It was Miss Alcott's first work—"Moods."
"It is very good, indeed, but I fear you are too young to appreciate it. There is an analysis of character that requires much mind knowledge, and that is why so many young girls consider it dry. If I were to explain it fully you would not understand; but you can read the volume through, and we will have a little chat when you have finished. I hope my little sister will not be impulsive and moody as the heroine."
Phillip then patted the golden curls, and as he stooped to kiss the pretty pouting lips he saw a fair vision of a lovely maiden, no longer a child on her brother's knee, but a sweet and amiable maiden, with a subdued and thoughtful look that showed she had struck a sympathetic chord in a fond brother's breast and given him the devotion of her first and purest love.
Then the dreamer vainly tried to draw another picture; but all was chaos. No bright form could be exorcised from the conglomerate heap. All was disorder—a ruined mound of buried hopes!—a blackness dark as the Stygian shore.