"Come with me.--There is a face you shall see but twice in life;--this
day,"--and Hilda paused, and the rigid and almost colossal beauty of
her countenance softened.

"And when again, my grandmother?"

"Child, put thy warm hand in mine. So! the vision darkens from me.--
when again, saidst thou, Edith?--alas, I know not."

While thus speaking, Hilda passed slowly by the Roman fountain and the
heathen fane, and ascended the little hillock. There on the opposite
side of the summit, backed by the Druid crommel and the Teuton altar,
she seated herself deliberately on the sward.

A few daisies, primroses, and cowslips, grew around; these Edith began
to pluck. Singing, as she wove, a simple song, that, not more by the
dialect than the sentiment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the
Norse [11], which had, in its more careless composition, a character
quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons. The song may
be thus imperfectly rendered:

"Merrily the throstle sings
Amid the merry May;
The throstle signs but to my ear;
My heart is far away!

Blithely bloometh mead and bank;
And blithely buds the tree;
And hark!--they bring the Summer home;
It has no home with me!