I saw our little Gertrude die:
She left off breathing, and no more
I smoothed the pillow beneath her head.
She was more beautiful than before,
Like violets faded were her eyes;
By this we knew that she was dead!
Through the open window looked the skies
Into the chamber where she lay,
And the wind was like the sound of wings,
As if Angels came to bear her away.
The Golden Legend.
III.
SOUL-LAND.
Autumn and Winter—By the Fireside—Where little Bell is going—Nanny sings about Cloe—Bell reads a Poem—The flight of an Angel—The Funeral—The good Parson—The two Grave-stones.
It was autumn. The wind, with its chilly fingers, picked off the sere leaves, and made mounds of them in the garden walks. The boom of the sea was heavier, and the pale moon fell oftener on stormy waves than in the summer months. Change and decay had come over the face of Earth even as they come over the features of one dead. In woods and hollow places vines lay rotting, and venturesome buds that dared to bloom on the hem of winter; and the winds made wail over the graves of last year's flowers.
Then Winter came—Winter, with its beard of snow—Winter, with its frosty breath and icy fingers, turning everything to pearl. The wind whistled odd tunes down the chimney; the plum-tree brushed against the house, and the hail played a merry tattoo on the window-glass. How the logs blazed in the sitting room!
Bell did not leave her room now.