"Yes, but it needs to be kept up—I want a good bed of coals."
A fine fire was on its way at last, and while waiting for it to burn down to the desired bed of coals, the temporary prince and princess sat down on the rock to feast their eyes in the mean time. A little past midday, it was not the picturesque hour for another season; but now, in the freshness of Spring, the delicate beauties of colour and light could bear the full meridian sun and not ask for shadows to set them off; other than the tender shade under the half-leaved trees. It was a warm enough day too, and those same leaves were making a great spring towards their full unfolding. Birds were twittering all around, and they only filled up the silence.
"Isn't it worth coming for!—" said Faith, when they had taken it all in for a few minutes without interrupting the birds.
"More than that—and the 'it' is very plural. Faith, do you see that butterfly?"—A primrose-winged rover was meandering about in the soft air before them, flitting over the buttercups with a listless sort of admiration.
"Poor thing, he has come out too soon," said Faith. "He will have some frost yet, for so summery as it is to-day." But Faith gave a graver look at the butterfly than his yellow wings altogether warranted.
"Among the ancients," said Mr. Linden, "the word for a butterfly and the word for the soul were the same,—they thought the first was a good emblem of the lightness and airiness of the last. So they held, that when a man died a butterfly might be seen flitting above his head. I was thinking how well this one little thing shews the exceeding lowness of heathen ideas."
"Did they think the butterfly was his very spirit, in that form?"
"I suppose so—or thought they did. But look at that creature's wavering, unsteady flight; his aimless wanderings, anywhere or nowhere; and compare it with the 'mounting up with wings as eagles', which a Christian soul may know, even in this life,—compare it with the swift 'return to God who gave it'—with the being 'caught up to meet the Lord' which it shall surely know at death."
"And the butterfly isn't further from that," said Faith clasping her hands together,—"than many a real, living soul in many a living person!"—
"No, not further; and so what the old Greeks made an emblem of the immortal soul, gives name, with us, to those persons who are most tied down to mortality. What were you thinking of, a minute ago, when I shewed you the butterfly?"