into the basin on each side of him. 'See horse spout,' she would say
moanfully; and that instant, if Dorothy was not present, a messenger
would be despatched to her. On a bright day this would happen
repeatedly. For the sake of renewing her delight, the instant she
turned from it, satisfied for the moment, the fountain ceased to
play, and the horse remained spoutless, awaiting the revival of the
darling's desire; for she was not content to see him spouting: she
must see him spout. Then again she would be carried forth to the
verge of the marble basin, and gazing up at the rearing animal would
say, in a tone daintily wavering betwixt entreaty and command,
'Spout, horse, spout,' and Dorothy, looking down from the far-off
summit of the tower, and distinguishing by the attitude of the child
the moment when she uttered her desire, would instantly, with one
turn of her hand, send the captive water shooting down its dark
channel to reascend in sunny freedom.

If little Mary Somerset was counted a strange child, the wisdom with
which she was wise is no more unnatural because few possess it, than
the death of such is premature because they are yet children. They
are small fruits whose ripening has outstripped their growth. Of
such there are some who, by the hot-house assiduities of their
friends, heating them with sulphurous stoves, and watering them with
subacid solutions, ripen into insufferable prigs. For them and for
their families it is well that Death the gardener should speedily
remove them into the open air. But there are others who, ripening
from natural, that is divine causes and influences, are the
daintiest little men and women, gentle in the utmost peevishness of
their lassitude, generous to share the gifts they most prize, and
divinely childlike in their repentances. Their falling from the
stalk is but the passing from the arms of their mothers into those