He was a very young boy; quite a little child.  His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of heaven, not of earth.  The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and, stooping over the pillow whispered his name.  The boy sprung up, stroked his face with his hand, and threw his wasted arms around his neck, crying, that he was his dear, kind friend.  “I hope I always was.  I meant to be, God knows,” said the poor schoolmaster.  “You remember my garden, Henry?” whispered the old man, anxious to rouse him, for dullness seemed gathering upon the child, “and how pleasant it used to be in the evening time?  You must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be.  You will come soon, very soon now, won’t you?”

The boy smiled faintly—­so very, very faintly—­and put his hand upon his friend’s gray head.  He moved his lips too, but no voice came from them,—­ no, not a sound.  In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices, borne upon the evening air, came floating through the open window.  “What’s that?” said the sick child, opening his eyes.  “The boys at play, upon the green.”  He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his head.  But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.  “Shall I do it?” said the schoolmaster.  “Please wave it at the window,” was the faint reply.  “Tie it to the lattice.  Some of them may see it there.  Perhaps they’ll think of me, and look this way.”

He raised his head and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle bat, that lay, with slate, and book, and other boyish property, upon the table in the room.  And then he laid him softly down once more, and again clasped his little arms around the old man’s neck.  The two old friends and companions—­for such they were, though they were man and child—­held each other in a long embrace, and then the little scholar turned his face to the wall and fell asleep.

* * * * * * * * *

The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small, cold hand in his, and chafing it.  It was but the hand of a dead child.  He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.

From “The Old Curiosity Shop,” by Dickens.

XXVII.  THE SNOW SHOWER. (141)

William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878, was the son of Peter Bryant, a physician of Cummington, Massachusetts.  Amid the beautiful scenery of this remote country town, the poet was born; and here he passed his early youth.  At the age of sixteen, Bryant entered Williams College, but was honorably dismissed at the end of two years.  He then entered on the study of law, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one.  He practiced his profession, with much success, for about nine years.  In 1826, he removed to New York, and became connected with the “Evening Post,” a connection which continued