nurse. "Will you be quiet, then, young sir? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Indeed, the whole day, as well as every day and every night, was spent by her in similar alarums and excursions, in alternations of torture and relief on the child's account, in terror because he had fallen and broken his nose, in gratification at his warm, childish caresses, and in dim anxiety concerning his ultimate future. Only these and like emotions made her old heart beat and her old blood grow warm; only these retained in her the drowsy life which, but for them, would long ago have flickered out.
Yet the child was not always mischievous. Sometimes he would grow suddenly quiet as, sitting beside her, he gazed fixedly before him with his childish intellect taking in the various phenomena which presented themselves to his vision. Such phenomena were sinking fast into his mind, to grow and ripen there even as it grew and ripened.
The morning was a splendid one, and the air still fresh, since the sun had not yet attained much height. From the house, from the trees, from the dovecote, and from the gallery there streamed long shadows which formed, in the garden and in the orchard, cool corners which invited meditation and
