Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/169



I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair; And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;

For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, As the shadow of sunlight ripples On the yellow bed of a brook. .

For the next month Benny lived in a seventh heaven of delight. The only drawback to his happiness was that Nelly was not alive to share his good fortune. Time was mercifully blunting the keen edge of his sorrow, and day by day he was getting more reconciled to his loss. Yet never a day passed but that he wished a hundred times that his little sister were still with him, that they might rejoice together in his good fortune. He knew that she was better off, and even hoped that she was not altogether ignorant of his success in life. Yet how much pleasanter it would have been, he thought, if they could have journeyed on through life together.

Benny had wonderful dreams of future success. Though not of a very imaginative temperament, he could not help occasionally indulging in day-dreams and castle-building, and