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Just as Mr. Effingham turned to enter the Hall again, weary
already of the lovely afternoon, spite of its azure skies, and
singing birds, and pleasant breezes rustling the leaves, and
the small brilliant flowers scattered over the lawn, he heard
a merry child's voice calling him, from the banks of the little
stream which gurgled over its mossy rocks, at the foot of
the hill.

He looked round, and saw Kate, who was running towards
him, making signs to him.

“Oh, Cousin Champ! come and look at Snowdrop!”
she cried, enthusiastically, as she grasped his hand and
turned her bright little face with its sparkling eyes and
laughing lips up to him; “just come and see how pretty I
have made Snowdrop, please!”

Mr. Effingham smiled, and allowed himself to be led
down the hill toward the stream. On the grassy margin
stood a young heifer, as white as snow, munching with indifferent
pleasure, grass, moss, and the early flowers. Snowdrop,
as Kate had dubbed the heifer, exhibited a most extraordinary
appearance, which fact was attributable to her
mistress, it was very plain. The animal was decked out
with a multiplicity of red and blue ribbons tied in fluttering
bows; and altogether presented an extraordinarily picturesque
spectacle, as she quietly, and with the air of a conscious
favorite, munched the flowery grass.

“Just look! isn't she pretty!” cried Kate, in a paroxysm
of delight. “Did you ever see any thing prettier in
all your life, now, Cousin Champ? So! Snowdrop, so—so!”
and Kate caressed the white neck of the heifer, who raised
her intelligent head, and licked the hand of her young mistress.

“Are those the ribbons I gave you,” asked Mr. Effingham,
smiling, “brought all the way, with the rest of your
presents, in my trunk from London?”

“Oh no!” cried Kate, “I wouldn't set Snowdrop up

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so! No, indeed! I'm going to make something nice with
them, something for you.”

“What, pray, Katy?”

“Why a knot for your sword hilt, or a lovely bow for
your coat, to wear at the party.”

Mr. Effingham smiled again.

“I have done with all those vanities,” he said, “and I
shall be very plain at the party, which it seems they are
bent on.”

“Oh yes! it will be so nice; but you mustn't dress in
black, Cousin Champ.”

“What then—white and ribbons, like Snowdrop?”

“Oh no, in blue and gold—your pretty suit you know.”

“Do you think Snowdrop would be handsome if she was
blue, and you decorated her with gold-colored ribbon?”

Kate burst into a shout of laughter.

“Oh, wouldn't that be funny?” she cried, shaking with
merriment. “What do you think, Miss Snowdrop—tell me
now?”

Snowdrop remained mute.

“You must teach her to converse,” said Mr. Effingham.

“I believe I could!” cried Kate, “she is so smart, and
good, and likes me so much. Don't you, Snowdrop?”

And Kate paused for a reply. Instead of replying, however,
the heifer, having exhausted the spot she stood upon,
moved away indifferently from her mistress, and vouchsafed
no further exhibition of regard. She began to graze quietly
on the flowery margin, at some distance.

“The horrid thing!” cried the child, “to be so ungrateful!
Well, she may go along.”

Mr. Effingham smiled again.

“Tell her goodbye, and let us go in, and look at the new
book of engravings,” he said.

“No,” Kate replied, laughing, “I won't take any more
notice of her. Listen how the bluebirds are singing! and
look at Tray, yonder, rolling on the grass!”

They approached and entered the Hall, and Mr. Effingham
took from the book-case in the library, the book of pictures.
The man and the child amused themselves over it for
some time, Kate sitting in his lap, as was habitual with her.
At last the volume was gone through with, and laid aside.

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Kate laid her head on Mr. Effingham's shoulder, and
sang in a low tone, thoughtfully. Mr. Effingham gazed for
some moments quietly into the little face, and said:

“What is that you're singing, Kate?”

“`It's hame, and its hame,'” replied the child, “I
didn't know I was singing.”

“It is very sweet:—commence now and sing it through,
for me. I like to hear you.”

“Do you really?” said Kate, smoothing back her hair.

“Yes, indeed.”

“I'll always sing when you ask me, then; but you know
I'll do any thing you want me to.”

And Kate sang, in her small child's voice, and with great
sweetness:

The tender little voice ended its sweet carol, and for
some time Mr. Effingham was quite silent, caressing, absently,
the child's small hand, which lay in his own.

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“That is a very pretty song, Kate,” he said at length;
and in an abstracted voice he repeated:


`When the flower is in the bud and the leaf upon the tree,
The lark shall sing me home in my own countrie.'
“That might apply to me,” he added, smiling, “you know
that I have come back just as the larks are beginning to
sing.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Kate, “and I am very much obliged
to the larks for singing you home.”

“Then, you are really glad to see me back?”

“How can you ask me that?” Kate said, reproachfully.

“Why are you glad? Come, tell me,” he asked smiling.

“Because I love you,” said the child, simply.

“And why do you love me?”

“Because you love me,” said Kate, laughing, “isn't that
the best reason in the world?”

“Indeed it is a very good reason, and is very true: but
come, tell me what you think of me, Kate—I am anxious
to know.”

“I can't answer that: how could I?”

“Am I good, or bad?”

“Oh, you're good!”

“Not very—I do not think I shall ever die of excessive
goodness. But go on—what else am I?”

“You are kind,” continued Kate, with a bright affectionate
look in her small face.

“Am I?”

“Yes, indeed: to me especially.”

“That's because you are such a poor little creature, not
much higher than my thumb,” said Mr. Effingham, forgetting
his weariness, and smiling.

“Indeed I am not,” said Kate, “I'm nearly an inch
taller than I was last year. Oh! you're jesting,” she added,
with a laugh.

“Well, go on now, and tell me something more about
myself. I am anxious to know. Am I very agreeable—
witty, amusing, entertaining? do you ever laugh heartily
when I talk to you?”

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“No, I don't think I do: but you know you have not
come back very well.”

“Who, I?” said Mr. Effingham, “why I am the picture
of health.”

“No, indeed you are not, cousin Champ: your cheeks
are thinner and paler than I like to see them.”

“My face pale—thin?”

“Yes—and it grieves me: indeed it does.”

“Are you ever grieved at any thing, Kate? I thought
that you were always so bright, and merry, and laughing;
playing with Willie, and decking out Snowdrop, and running
about like a sunbeam incessantly, that you never stopped
to think a moment, much less to grieve.”

“Indeed, you are mistaken: I think a great deal,” said
Kate, “I think when I am playing, and sewing, and even
when I am singing.”

“What do you think of?”

“Of any thing—of you, or papa, or myself, or mamma.”

“Of your mother?”

“Yes, cousin Champ,” said Kate, quite simply, “you
know mamma is in heaven.”

Mr. Effingham made no reply.

“But what do you grieve about?” he asked at length.
“You said you grieved, Katy.”

“Yes, I grieve, but not often. I grieve about you sometimes.”

“Since my return?”

“Yes, cousin Champ, and while you were away too. I
didn't like you to be away—for you know you were my playmate.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Effingham.

“I had other playmates—Willie and Tommy Alston,
and Sue Ashton, but I liked you the best: and then you
know I thought you couldn't be so happy across the sea as
here.”

“I don't think I was.”

“I used to want you to come back mightily: and I've
prayed often for you, too.”

Mr. Effingham smoothed the bright little head in silence.

“You don't know how delighted I was, when your

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letter came,” continued Kate, laying her cheek on Mr. Effingham's
shoulder.

“Were you?” he said, smiling.

“Yes, but I thought you would come back looking better—
how did you grow so pale?”

And the child looked affectionately at the white brow,
and thin cheek.

“Am I pale?” he said, “well, I must get rosy again,
and not make my little pet grieve.”

“Indeed, I wish you would look merry and well again—
I don't like to see you looking so tired, and as if you did
not care much for any thing.”

These words were so perfect an echo to what Mr. Effingham
had said of himself a little while before, that he was
struck.

“But, suppose I do not care for any thing?” he said.
“Listen now, Katy: suppose I considered life, this world you
know, a place where people dressed up and went through their
parts, as a matter of course, because other people were looking
at them; and suppose I thought that all their merry
faces, and laughing, and going on, was affected—and often
hid a feeling of disquiet, I mean painful feeling. Suppose
I did not take any interest in any thing, because the world
was not bright, and disagreeable things were always putting
me out of temper:—suppose I really did not care any thing
for the world, or the people in it?”

“But that would be wrong,” said Kate, simply.

“How?”

“Because the world is not so bad and disagreeable.”

“Isn't it?”

“Oh, no.”

“But if I thought so?”

“Well, cousin Champ, I think you still ought to do your
duty.”

“My duty?”

“Yes: you know there is a great deal of good to be
done in the world, and nobody has the right to leave it undone.
Don't be offended with me:—I wouldn't say it, you
know, if it wasn't right; or, I mean, if I didn't think it was
right: and I don't mean you.”

Mr. Effingham was silent.

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