Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/255

 by the open gate, I heard again the bird-voice of the little post-mistress singing her onomatopoetic baby-song, "Bourique,—tiquiti, tiquiti, tiquiti; milet,—tocoto, tocoto, tocoto; çouval,—tacata, tacata, tacata." VI . . . O little brown-eyed lamb, the wolfish world waits hungrily to devour such as thou!—dainty sea-land flower, that pinkness of thine will not fade out more speedily than shall evaporate thy perfume of sweet illusions in the stagnant air of cities! Many tears will dim those dark eyes, nevertheless, ere thou shalt learn that wealth—even the wealth of nations—is accumulated, without sense of altruism, in eternal violation of those exquisite ethics which seem to thee of God's own teaching. When thou shalt have learned this, and other and sadder things, perhaps, memory may crown thee with her crown of sorrows,—may bear thee back, back, in wonderful haze of blue and gold, to that island home of thine,—even into that tiny office-room, with its smiling gray portrait of thy dead father's father. And fancy may often re-create for thee