as if her spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view
and out of it. And therefore, when he saw what Pansie had done, he sent
forth a strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of
aged and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "Naughty Pansie, to pull up
grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Poison, Pansie,
poison! Fling it away, child!"

And dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little
girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while Pansie, as
apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of
mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was
ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this
fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten.

"Stop, naughty Pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "You will tumble
into the grave!" The kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems to
affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back.

And, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more
literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate communicated
with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little Pansie's track there
was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant that afternoon. Pansie,
however, fled onward with outstretched arms, half in fear, half in fun,
plying her round little legs with wonderful promptitude, as if to escape
Time or Death, in the person of Grandsir Dolliver, and happily avoiding
the ominous pitfall that lies in every person's path, till, hearing a
groan from her pursuer, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that poor
grandpapa had stumbled over one of the many hillocks. She then suddenly
wrinkled up her little visage, and sent forth a full-breathed roar of
sympathy and alarm.