She flies high into the air and meets a
lover by chance; she has so many that one is sure to be met; she kisses
him in that crystal eddy of sunshine, and, in the transport, he is
wounded to the heart. How many young drones from the academy have seen
thee once and swooned for life!"
"But the queen bee also has a fate some time, sir?"
"Yes. She leaves the ancient hive at last, and settles on an unsightly
forest-tree somewhere, and all that love her follow: the long-neglected
herb becomes busy with music and sweetness, and the flashing of silver
wings, till into some gum-tree cone the farmer gathers the swarm, and it
is their home."
Vesta looked up at the poetical illustration, and saw her husband's
conical hat, into which she had been hived, and her eyes fell to her
mourning weeds.
"Oh, my father!" she thought; "has he kept his good resolutions! It is
all I have left to hope for."
They travelled down the aisles of the level forest, sometimes the
holly-trees, in their green leafage and red fruit, sometimes the cleanly
pine-tree's green, enriching the brown concavity of oaks; and at the
scattered settlement of Kingston, the Jackson candidate for governor,
Mr. Carroll, bowed from his door. Crossing Morumsco Creek, they bore to
the east, and soon saw, on a plain, the still animate ecclesiastical
hamlet of Rehoboth, extending its two ancient churches across the
vision.
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