His head sunk lower and lower, until it rested upon her innocent brow, and upon her shining curls. Suddenly she started with a piteous cry.
“He is cold! he is dead! Leave me not yet, oh, my father!” and lifeless as the corse beside her, the orphan fell to the ground.
Yet a few days, and Philip Mordaunt, strong in the hopes of youth and love, passed forever from the house of death. Unconscious that the little being, whose fair head rested upon his bosom, and whose welfare he had sworn to guard with a brother’s love, possessed indeed a sister’s claim; unconscious that his presence had soothed the dying hour of a parent; unconscious how nearly he had been sent forth branded as the son of a felon. Thus tread we ever blindly amid the precipices of our fate.
BIRD-NOTES.
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BY WM. H. C. HOSMER.
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Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane and the swallow, observe the time of their coming. Jer. c. vii. v. 7.
The stork in heaven knoweth