Looks, and smiles, and whispers, and tears too, under cover of a Tribune and an Express. And the blaze would die down just when Hugh had got to the last verse of something, and then while impatiently waiting for the new pine splinters to catch he would tell Fleda how much he liked it, or how beautiful he thought it, and whisper enquiries and critical questions; till the fire reached the fat vein and leaped up in defiant emulation of gas-lights unknown, and then he would fall to again with renewed gusto. And Fleda hunted out in her portfolio what bits to give him first, and bade him as she gave them remember this and understand that, which was necessary to be borne in mind in the reading. And through all the brightening and fading blaze, and all the whispering, congratulating, explaining, and rejoicing going on at her side, Mrs. Rossitur and her tallow candle were devoted to each other, happily and engrossingly. At last, however, she flung the Magazine from her and turning from the table sat looking into the fire with a rather uncommonly careful and unsatisfied brow.
"What did you think of the second piece of poetry there, mother?" said Hugh;--"that ballad?--'The wind's voices' it is called."
"'The wind's voices'?--I don't know--I didn't read it, I believe."
"Why mother! I liked it very much. Do read it--read it aloud."
Mrs. Rossitur took up the Magazine again abstractedly, and read--
"'Mamma, what makes your face so sad?
The sound of the wind makes me feel glad;
But whenever it blows, as grave you look,
As if you were reading a sorrowful book.'
"'A sorrowful book I am reading, dear,--
A book of weeping and pain and fear,--
A book deep printed on my heart,
Which I cannot read but the tears will start.
"'That breeze to my ear was soft and mild,
Just so, when I was a little child;
But now I hear in its freshening breath
The voices of those that sleep in death.'
"'Mamma,' said the child with shaded brow,
'What is this book you are reading now?
And why do you read what makes you cry?'
'My child, it comes up before my eye.
"'Tis the memory, love, of a far-off day
When my life's best friend was taken away;--
Of the weeks and months that my eyes were dim
Watching for tidings--watching for him.