Beulah - Page 9/348

"Hush about her, and run on ahead."

"Do, pray, let me get my breath first. Which way are we going?"

"To the piney woods yonder," cried Lilly, clapping her hands in

childish glee; "won't we have fun, rolling and sliding on the

straw?" The two little ones walked on in advance.

The path along which their feet pattered so carelessly led to a

hollow or ravine, and the ground on the opposite side rose into

small hillocks, thickly wooded with pines. Beulah sat down upon a

mound of moss and leaves; while Claudia and Lillian, throwing off

their hoods, commenced the glorious game of sliding. The pine straw

presented an almost glassy surface, and, starting from the top of a

hillock, they slid down, often stumbling and rolling together to the

bottom. Many a peal of laughter rang out, and echoed far back in the

forest, and two blackbirds could not have kept up a more continuous

chatter. Apart from all this sat Beulah; she had remembered the

matron's words, and stopped just at the verge of the woods, whence

she could see the white palings of the asylum. Above her the winter

breeze moaned and roared in the pine tops; it was the sad but dearly

loved forest music that she so often stole out to listen to. Every

breath which sighed through the emerald boughs seemed to sweep a

sympathetic chord in her soul, and she raised her arms toward the

trees as though she longed to clasp the mighty musical box of nature

to her heart. The far-off blue of a cloudless sky looked in upon

her, like a watchful guardian; the sunlight fell slantingly, now

mellowing the brown leaves and knotted trunks, and now seeming to

shun the darker spots and recesses where shadows lurked. For a time

the girl forgot all but the quiet and majestic beauty of the scene.

She loved nature as only those can whose sources of pleasure have

been sadly curtailed, and her heart went out, so to speak, after

birds, and trees, and flowers, sunshine and stars, and the voices of

sweeping winds. An open volume lay on her lap; it was Longfellow's

Poems, the book Eugene had sent her, and leaves were turned down at

"Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life." The changing countenance

indexed very accurately the emotions which were excited by this

communion with Nature. There was an uplifted look, a brave, glad,

hopeful light in the gray eyes, generally so troubled in their

expression. A sacred song rose on the evening air, a solemn but

beautiful hymn. She sang the words of the great strength-giving

poet, the "Psalm of Life": "Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream;

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem."