A sweet,
peculiar, little face she had, sunny and fair; but, under the broad
forehead where the bright hair fell as David's used to do, there
shone a pair of dark and solemn eyes, so large, so deep, and often
so unchildlike, that her mother wondered where she got them. Even
when she smiled the shadow lingered in these eyes, and when she wept
they filled and overflowed with great, quiet tears like flowers too
full of dew. Christie often said remorsefully:
"My little Pansy! I put my own sorrow into your baby soul, and now
it looks back at me with this strange wistfulness, and these great
drops are the unsubmissive tears I locked up in my heart because I
would not be grateful for the good gift God gave me, even while he
took that other one away. O Baby, forgive your mother; and don't let
her find that she has given you clouds instead of sunshine."
This fear helped Christie to keep her own face cheerful, her own
heart tranquil, her own life as sunny, healthful, and hopeful as she
wished her child's to be. For this reason she took garden and
green-house into her own hands when Bennet gave them up, and, with a
stout lad to help her, did well this part of the work that David
bequeathed to her.
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