'CAN they be English nightingales?' said Dorothy thoughtfully.
The doctor was bewildered for a moment. He had been talking about
himself, not the nightingales, but he recovered himself like a
gentleman.
'Assuredly, mistress Dorothy,' he replied; 'this is the land of
their birth. Hither they come again when the winter is over.'
'Yes; they take no part in our troubles. They will not sing to
comfort our hearts in the cold; but give them warmth enough, and
they sing as careless of battle-fields and dead men as if they were
but moonlight and apple-blossoms.'
'Is it not better so?' returned the divine after a moment's thought.
'How would it be if everything in nature but re-echoed our moan?'
Dorothy looked at the little man, and was in her turn a moment
silent.
'Then,' she said, 'we must see in these birds and blossoms, and that
great blossom in the sky, so many prophets of a peaceful time and a
better country, sent to remind us that we pass away and go to them.'
'Nay, my dear mistress Dorothy!' returned the all but obsequious
doctor; 'such thoughts do not well befit your age, or rather, I
would say, your youth.
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