It is quite true, that, the next morning after James's departure,
she rose as usual in the dim gray, and was to be seen opening the
kitchen-door just at the moment when the birds were giving the first
little drowsy stir and chirp,--and that she went on setting the
breakfast-table for the two hired men, who were bound to the fields with
the oxen,--and that then she went on skimming cream for the butter,
and getting ready to churn, and making up biscuit for the Doctor's
breakfast, when he and they should sit down together at a somewhat later
hour; and as she moved about, doing all these things, she sung various
scraps of old psalm-tunes; and the good Doctor, who was then busy with
his early exercises of devotion, listened, as he heard the voice, now
here, now there, and thought about angels and the Millennium. Solemnly
and tenderly there floated in at his open study-window, through the
breezy lilacs, mixed with low of kine and bleat of sheep and hum of
early wakening life, the little silvery ripples of that singing,
somewhat mournful in its cadence, as if a gentle soul were striving to
hush itself to rest.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373