ant of his In spite of the many days and nights passed in the "Land of Counterpane," and shining, perhar S, all the brighter by comparison, there were brilli husepisodes of play that remained clearer in my band's memory than almost any other part life. He was especially happy in the companionusins, Willie ship of two of his Edinburgh co and Henrietta Traquair. As ttle girl Henrietta already showed the characteristics that were her charm in womanhood Never quarrelsome, and always cheerfully willing to take a secondary place, she nevertheless made her individuality felt, and threw a roma a tic glamour over every part she assumed. E Wen the wicked ogre, or giant, she endowed with unexpected attributes of generosity, and her impersonation of a chivalrous knight was When I last saw Henrietta, a few years e both knew that she had but a little while ideal. ago, w T to live, but the undaunted light in her eyes seemed to say: Must we to bed, indeed? Well then Let us arise and go like men. From the memory of these early days my husband plucked a blossom here and there for The Child's Garden. A beginning was made by the writing of a few verses while we stopped in Braemar. A few months later, in Hyères, the games of his childhood served in a new way to again interest and amuse him. After a terrible hemorrhage, he fell a victim to sciatica, and at the same time was temporarily blind from an attack of ophthalmia. Not only was all light exclud from the room where he lay, but on account of the hemorrhage his right arm was closely bound to his side. Most men would have succumbed to the force of circumstances, but he, undismayed, determined to circumvent the fate he would not accept. Across his bed a board was laid on which large sheets of paper were pinned; on these, or on a slate fastened to the board, he laboriously wrote out in the darkness, with his left hand, many more of the songs of his childhood. 1885 these were collected in volume first called Penny Whistles, but afterwards changed to A Child's Garden of Verses, and Published under that name with the addition of six nvoys. In F. V. DE G. S. ། |
