Bathsheba was stirred by emotions which
latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead within
her. The little attenuated voices of the children
brought to her ear in destinct utterance the words they
sang without thought or comprehension --
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on.
Bathsheba's feeling was always to some extent de-
pendent upon her whim, as is the case with many other
women. Something big came into her throat and an
uprising to her eyes -- and she thought that she would
allow the imminent tears to flow if they wished. They
did flow and plenteously, and one fell upon the stone
bench beside her. Once that she had begun to cry for
she hardly knew what, she could not leave off for crowd-
ing thoughts she knew too well. She would have given
anything in the world to be, as those children were, un-
concerned at the meaning of their words, because too
innocent to feel the necessity for any such expression.
All the impassioned scenes of her brief expenence
seemed to revive with added emotion at that moment,
and those scenes which had been without emotion
during enactment had emotion then.
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