It was a pretty sight--Cousin John and Fanny; she, skipping on before him to pluck a flower, then returning to glide her little hand in his, and walk contentedly by his side; or, standing on some stile, waiting to be lifted over, with her bonnet blown back, and her bright little face beaming with smiles; Cousin John sometimes answering her questions at random, as the tones of her voice, or the expression of her face, recalled her lost mother; sometimes looking proudly upon the bud, as he thought how sweet and fair would be the blossom, but more often gazing at her tearfully, as Lucy's last solemn words rang in his ears.
Percy was a riddle to himself. In the child's pure presence, every spot upon his soul's mirror he would have wiped away. Lips which had never framed a prayer for themselves, now murmured one for _her_. Feet which had strayed into forbidden paths, would fain have found for _her_ tiny feet the straight and narrow path of life.
Insensibly "a little child was leading him"--nearer to Thee, O God, nearer to Thee.
Little Fanny's joy on this pedestrian tour was irrepressible; but the journey was not all performed on foot: many a good-natured farmer gave them a lift of a mile or two, and many a kind-hearted farmer's wife offered Fanny a cake, or a drink of milk, for the sake of her own sun-burnt children, yet blessed in a mother's love. Then there were friendly trees to shade them from the scorching noon-day sun, where the peddler could unstrap his pack, and Fanny throw off her bonnet and go to sleep in his lap. Sparkling brooks there were, to lave their faces, or quench their thirst, and flowers whose beauty might have tempted on tardier feet than Fanny's. Their only trouble was "Cousin John's pack;" and Fanny's slender stock of arithmetic was exhausted in trying to compute how many pieces of tape, how many papers of needles, how many skeins of thread, must be sold before he could buy a horse and wagon to help him to carry his load. The peddler, too, had his air-castles to build, to which the afore-mentioned tape, needles, and thread were but the stepping-stones. Fanny once placed where she could be contented, and kindly treated, and Cousin John must leave her, to woo Dame Fortune, for her sake, more speedily.