When Donal ceased, he remained open-mouthed and motionless for a time; then, drawing himself slidingly over the grass to Donal's feet, he raised his head and peeped above his knees at the book.

A moment only he gazed, and drew back with a hungry sigh: he had seen nothing in the book like what Donal had been drawing from it--as if one should look into the well of which he had just drunk, and see there nothing but dry pebbles and sand! The wind blew gentle, the sun shone bright, all nature closed softly round the two, and the soul whose children they were was nearer than the one to the other, nearer than sun or wind or daisy or Chyld Dyring.

To his amazement, Donal saw the tears gathering in Gibbie's eyes.

He was as one who gazes into the abyss of God's will--sees only the abyss, cannot see the will, and weeps.

The child in whom neither cold nor hunger nor nakedness nor loneliness could move a throb of self-pity, was moved to tears that a loveliness, to him strange and unintelligible, had passed away, and he had no power to call it back.
"Wad ye like to hear't again ?" asked Donal, more than half understanding him instinctively.
Gibbie's face answered with a flash, and Donal read the poem again, and Gibbie's delight returned greater than before, for now something like a dawn began to appear among the cloudy words.