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The ivy heard these envious words, and they made her very sad; but she said nothing of them to the oak-tree, and that night the oak-tree rocked her to sleep as he repeated the lullaby a zephyr was singing to him. "There is a storm coming over the hills," said the oak-tree one day. "The east wind tells me so; the swallows fly low in the air, and the sky is dark.
For hours she had sung, while the head upon her bosom pressed more and more heavily the hand which clasped hers unloosed its hold the eyes which had fastened themselves upon her with a look of unutterable love, closed wearily the lips, which, so long as there was life in them, ceased not to bless her, were still, and poor, tired, crazy Nina, fancying that he slept at last, still swayed back and forth, singing to the cold senseless clay, an infant lullaby.
Even that long sleep of the morning had not cured Vixen's weariness. There were long arrears of slumber yet to be made up. Her eyelids drooped, then closed altogether, the ocean lullaby took a still softer sound, the distant voices of the tourists grew infinitely soothing, and Vixen sank quietly to sleep, her head leaning on her folded arms, the gentle west wind faintly stirring her loose hair.
A volume of sound rose, of clashing notes in fierce, swinging movement, a thrilling clamour of soul-stirring melody, at once short and sharp and long-drawn, at once soft as a mother's lullaby and savage as a hungry tiger's roar.
In the darkness she approached unnoticed, and singing in an undertone a Crow lullaby, walked back and forth among the lodges, watching eagerly for any signs of him she sought. At last she came near to the council lodge. There she beheld his face like an apparition through the dusk and the fire-light! He was sitting within, dressed in the gala costume of a Crow.
Intent on speculation when the truths of nature and revelation are breaking on your eye, will you hear the sudden cry of children, the lullaby of nurses, the turbulent bustling of disorderly servants? In the serious pursuits of wisdom there is no time to be lost. Believe me, as well withdraw totally from literature as attempt to proceed in the midst of worldly avocations.
"Wasn't it a good lullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked. "So, so," she replied, on her defence again. "It was good enough for her mother," he replied, pointing to the cradle. "It's French and fanciful," she retorted "both music and words." "The child's French what would you have?" asked Jean Jacques indignantly.
The sunlight glanced on her fair hair and her light gown, as she swung from the green shadows into its golden pathway in time to the sweet notes of his baby's lullaby. The words came faintly across the hay-field: "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide; When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!"
At last, however, they realize that they are lost; and in the midst of their fear, which is intensified by strange sights and sounds, the Sandman, or sleep fairy, approaches them, strews sand in their eyes, and sings them to sleep with a most delicious lullaby, after they have recited their prayer, "When at night I go to sleep, fourteen Angels watch do keep."
But the girl herself was a truer nomad than many to whom with warm friendliness she nodded and spoke. Late one afternoon Diane espied a woodland brook. Shot with gold and shadow, it laughed along, under a waving canopy of green, freckled with cool, clean pebbles and hiding roguishly now and then beneath a trailing branch. A brook was a luxury. It was mirror and spring and lullaby in one.
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