“Oh, yes!” said Ellen, pressing near to him, and taking his hand in both hers. They were silent, and they heard the children talking as they played.
“There is King Alexander,” said Charles, setting up a pebble—“he is going to dinner. Put the dinner, Alice.”
Alice set out several other pebbles before King Alexander.
“And he has got a great feast. There is plenty of water, more than he can drink; and he drinks, drinks, as much as he likes, and still there is plenty of water when he goes to bed.”
“Poor children! I can’t bear it,” said Ellen.
“Oh, Ellen, it would have been better never to have given them birth!” said Paulett.
“No—not that,” said Ellen, sitting down again; “though they must suffer, they are better to be; when this suffering has dissolved their bodies—on the other side of these mortal pains there is ease and happiness.”
“True, true, dear Ellen,” said Paulett; “it is only difficult to die.”
He held her hand; and while he did so, his eye fastened on a diamond ring which she wore. She observed his fixed look.
“You gave me that when we little thought how it was we should part—when I was a bride—and there was all the pleasure and business of the world round us. It hardly seems as if we were the same creatures.”