groping hand when his father bids him drink. He cannot find the
glass, and his father must put it to his lips. He is blind, except to
light,--and that only visits those poor sightless eyes to agonize them!
Where the water flows off below the basin in a clear jet, the father
bathes his boy's forehead, and gently, gently touches his eyelids. But
the child reaches out his wasted hands, and dashes the water against his
face with a sad eagerness.

Other country vehicles approach. The people are stopping to drink of
this water, on their way to drink of the waters of life in church. They
are smart and smiling in their Sunday clothes. I observe, that, far from
being the old or diseased, they are mostly young men and pretty girls.
The marble spring is a charming trysting-place!

There are swarms of children here all day long. This is the first time
since I left Kate's apron-string at seven years old, that I have seen
much of children. Boys, to be sure, I was with until I left college;
but the hotel-life I afterwards led kept me quite out of the way of
youngsters. Now, I am much amused at the funny little world that opens
before my notice. They flirt like grown-up people! I heard a little chit
of six say to a youth of five,--

"How dare you ask me to go to the spring with you, when you've been and
asked Ellen already? _I_ don't have to put up with half a gentleman!"

A flashy would-be lady, bustling up to the spring with her little
daughter, burst into a loud laugh at the remark of an acquaintance.

"Mamma!" said Miss, tempering severity with benign dignity,--"you must
not laugh so loud. It's vulgar."