CHILDREN'S LAUGHTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1418, 25 January 1879, Page 23

CHILDREN'S LAUGHTER.

How it ripples across the fields and echoes along the hill- side, as musical as distant church-bells pealing over the grassy meadows, where the brown village darlings are gathering buttercups ! There are no sounds so sweet to a mother's ear, except, perhaps, the first lisping of an infant's prayer. Children's Jaughter ! how dull the home is wherein its music has once j >yously echoed, but now is heard no more. How still is the house when the little ones are all fast asleep, and their pattering feet are silent. How easily the iun of a child bubbles forth. Take even those poor, prema-turely-aged little oiips, bred in the gutter, cramped in unhealthy homes, and ill used, it may bo, by drunken parents, and you will find the child-nature is not all crushed out of them. They are children still, albeit they look so haggard and wan. Try to excite their mirthfulness, and ere long a laugh rings out, as wild and free as if there were no such thing as sorrow in the world. Lot the little ones laugh, then ; too soon, alas ! they will find cause enough to weep. Do not try to silence them, but lot their glesfulness ring out a gladsome peal, reminding us of the days when we, 100, could laugh, without a sigh.