24 BE TRUE.

CHAPTER III.

THE COVERT—THE TRIAL-——THE TRUE OF
HEART—THE STORM-CLOUD—SYMPATHY

Around our couch at midnight
Their forms flit slowly by,
And in olden tones they speak to us
Ere they fade into the sky.
At twilight, when the dew falls,
They walk with us and sing,
And their voice is like the murmuring
Of swallows on the wing.—Songs of the Dead.

Our friend Laura was still a little
girl; but the mind does not always
measure its growth by the flight of
years. A brief day of sorrow may
teach us what long years of sunshine
would not; yet we love the sun-
shine. Our hearts quail with terror
in view of the gathering storm, and
when the first rude blast sweeps
over us, we cling to some earthly
reed; another follows, and our hold