One evening, returning to the hut with her usual song, she danced up to
her father's face on his rushy bed, and it was cold in death. If she
shrieked--if she fainted--there was but one ear that heard, one eye that
saw her in her swoon. Not now floating light like a small moving cloud
unwilling to leave the flowery braes, though it be to melt in heaven,
but driven along like a shroud of flying mist before the tempest, she
came upon us in the midst of that dreary moss; and at the sound of our
quaking voice, fell down with clasped hands at our feet--"My father's
dead!" Had the hut put already on the strange, dim, desolate look of
mortality? For people came walking fast down the braes, and in a little
while there was a group round us, and we bore her back again to her
dwelling in our arms. As for us, we had been on our way to bid the fair
creature and her father farewell. How could she have lived--an utter
orphan--in such a world! The holy power that is in Innocence would for
ever have remained with her; but Innocence longs to be away, when her
sister Joy has departed; and 'tis sorrowful to see the one on earth,
when the other has gone to heaven! This sorrow none of us had long to
see; for though a flower, when withered at the root, and doomed ere eve
to perish, may yet look to the careless eye the same as when it
blossomed in its pride,--its leaves, still green, are not as once they
were,--its bloom, though fair, is faded--and at set of sun, the dews
shall find it in decay, and fall unfelt on all its petals. Ere Sabbath
came, the orphan child was dead. Methinks we see now her little funeral.
Her birth had been the humblest of the humble; and though all in life
had loved her, it was thought best that none should be asked to the
funeral of her and her father, but two or three friends; the old
clergyman himself walked at the head of the father's coffin--we at the
head of the daughter's--for this was granted unto our exceeding
love;--and thus passed away for ever the Blind Beauty of the