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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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“’In the midst of life we are in death,”’ said Miss Ophelia. St. Clare rose up, and laying the paper down carelessly, walked to the door that stood open on the verandah, to put an end to a conversation that was not agreeable to him. Mechanically, he repeated the last word again,- “Death!”- and, as he leaned against the railings, and watched the sparkling water as it rose and fell in the fountain; and, as in a dim and dizzy haze, saw flowers and trees and vases of the courts, he repeated again the mystic word so common in every mouth, yet of such fearful power,-"DEATH!" “Strange that there should be such a word,” he said, “and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!” It was a warm, golden evening; and, as he walked to the other end of the ve- randah, he saw Tom busily intent on his Bible, pointing, as he did so, with his fin- ger to each successive word, and whispering them to himself with an earnest air. “Want me to read to you, Tom?” said St. Clare, seating himself carelessly by him. “If Mas’r pleases,” said Tom, gratefully, “Mas’r makes it so much plainer.” St. Clare took the book and glanced at the place, and began reading one of the passages which Tom had designated by the heavy marks around it. It ran as fol- lows: |
