Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/83

 few articles of household furniture. The cold wind blew; the little girl clung closer to her mother, who looked up to my round waning face and thought upon her bitter want.

Her thoughts were those of the whole company, and therefore the red glimmering of daylight was like the evangile of the sun of prosperity which should again rise. They heard the song of the dying nightingale; it was to them no false prophet, but a foreteller of happiness. The wind whistled, but they understood not the song; “Sail securely across the sea! thou hast paid for the long voyage with all that thou art possessed of; poor and helpless shalt thou set foot on thy land of Canaan. Thou mayst sell thyself, thy wife, and thy child, yet you shall none of you suffer long. Behind the broad fragrant leaf sits the goddess of death; her kiss of welcome breathes consuming fever into thy blood, far away, far away, over the swelling waters!”

The emigrant company listened joyfully to the song of the nightingale, which they thought announced to them happiness. Day beamed from behind light clouds, and the