Whoever will bring her back to her afflicted mother -- '' Stop , stop , town crier ! The lost is found . O , my pretty Annie , we forgot to tell your mother of our ramble , and she is in despair , and has sent the town crier to bellow up and down the streets , afrighting old and young , for the loss of a little girl who has not once let go my hand ! Well , let us hasten homeward ; and as we go , forget not to thank Heaven , my Annie , that , after wandering a little way into the world , you may return at the first summons , with an untainted and unwearied heart , and be a happy child again . But I have gone too far astray for the town crier to call me back . Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit , throughout my ramble with little Annie ! Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments , an idle matter , a babble of childish talk , and a revery of childish imaginations , about topics unworthy of a grown man 's notice . Has it been merely this ? Not so ; not so . They are not truly wise who would affirm it . As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men , so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts , their native feeling , their airy mirth , for little cause or none , their grief , soon roused and soon allayed . Their influence on us is at least reciprocal with ours on them . When our infancy is almost forgotten , and our boyhood long departed , though it seems but as yesterday ; when life settles darkly down upon us , and we doubt whether to call ourselves young any more , then it is good to steal away from the society of bearded men , and even of gentler woman , and spend an hour or two with children . After drinking from those fountains of still fresh existence , we shall return into the crowd , as I do now , to struggle onward and do our part in life , perhaps as fervently as ever , but , for a time , with a kinder and purer heart , and a spirit more lightly wise . There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning ! - and , through the partially frosted window-panes , I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm . A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air , and hover downward with uncertain flight , now almost alighting on the earth , now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere . These are not the big flakes , heavy with moisture , which melt as they touch the ground , and are portentous of a soaking rain . It is to be , in good earnest , a wintry storm . The two or three people , visible on the side-walks , have an aspect of endurance , a blue-nosed , frosty fortitude , which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day .
By nightfall , or at least before the sun sheds another glimmering smile XXXXX us , the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snow-drifts .
As about at by for of on that though upon