Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/398

Rh "My poor little girl bitterly regretted the loss of her brother. Even now she can scarcely hear his name without tears. When the savages brought Francis to us, she at first took him for her brother. 'Oh, how you have grown in heaven!' cried she; and, after she discovered he was not her brother, she often said to him, 'How I wish your name was Alfred!'

"Forgive me for dwelling so long on the details of my wretched journey, which was not without its comforts, in the pleasure I took in the development of my children's minds, and in forming plans for their future education. Though anything relating to science, or the usual accomplishments, would be useless to them, I did not wish to bring them up like young savages; I hoped to be able to communicate much useful knowledge to them, and to give them juster ideas of this world and that to come.

"As soon as the sun had dried them, I made them put on their dresses, and we continued our walk by the brook, till we arrived at the grove which is before this rock. I removed the branches to pass through it, and saw beyond them the entrance to this grotto. It was very low and narrow; but I could not help uttering a cry of joy, for this was the only sort of retreat that could securcly shelter us. I was going to enter it without thought, not reflecting there might be in it some ferocious animal, when I was arrested by a plaintive cry, more like that of a child than a wild beast; I advanced with more caution, and tried to find out what sort of an inhabitant the cave contained. It was indeed a human being!—an infant, whose age I could not discover; but it seemed too young to