tree. “Winter is not here yet. There’s a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?” Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length—“No, I’ll not touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?”
“Yes,” I observed, “about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You’re so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you.”
“No,” she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.
“Catherine, why are you crying, love?” I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder. “You mustn’t cry because papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.”