Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/146



The morning flowers displayed their sweets, And gay their silken leaves unfold. As careless of the noontide heats. As fearless of the evening cold.

Nipt by the winds' unkindly blast, Parched by the sun's director ray, The momentary glories waste, The short-lived beauties die away. S. Wesley.

Joe Wrag heard the news in silence. Benny, who had gone to him to tell him what had happened to Nell, was not half pleased that he said nothing in reply. But Joe was too troubled to talk. Like granny, he had known for months what was coming, but it had come suddenly, and in a way that he had not expected, and the old man, as he afterwards expressed it, was "struck all of a heap." Benny waited for some time, but finding Joe was not inclined to talk, he made his way home, leaving the old man gazing into the fire, with a vacant look in his eyes and a look of pain upon his face.

No one ever knew what the old man suffered that night. It was like tearing open the wound that had been made