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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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“I’m going there,” she said, “to the spirits bright, Tom; I’m going, before long.” The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how often he had noticed, within six months, that Eva’s little hands had grown thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and how, when she ran or played in the garden as she once could for hours, she became soon so tired and languid. He had heard Miss Ophelia speak often of a cough, that all her medicaments could not cure; and even now that fervent cheek and little hand were burning with hectic fe- ver; and yet the thought that Eva’s words suggested had never come to him till now. Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their sin- gular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the liv- ing are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and en- dear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye,- when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children,- hope not to retain that child; for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes. |
