"GOD BLESS THE STAR!"
"Darling, I am feeling so tired this evening, won't you sit beside my bed and hold my hand in yours while you tell me about the stars?"
His sister Mary suggested lighting the lamp and reading a story, but he held her hand with gentle force, saying:
"Do not light the lamp. Leave the curtain up so that I can see the stars from my window, and tell me in your own words that story you told me of a star the other day—Dickens' story of a star. Don't you remember, sister?"
Still holding his little hand in hers, and giving it a loving pressure, she rested her head on the pillow beside his, and began, in low soft tones:
"There was once a beautiful bright star that shone down upon the home of a little boy and girl who wondered at its light. They learned to know it so well that every evening the one who saw it first would say, 'I see the star,' and before they went to sleep at night they would say 'Good-night' to the star, and, 'God bless the star!'
"But the little girl, while she was still very young, became very weak and feeble, so that she was unable to go to the window and look at the star, so the brother would stand there alone and watch for it. As soon as he saw it he would turn round to his sister, and say, 'I see the star,' and the little sister would answer gently, 'God bless my brother and the star!' One evening the brother looked at the star alone, for his little sister had passed away to her home among the stars. That was a sad and lonely evening for the brother, and at night he dreamed of his sister. Her face seemed to be looking at him from the bright star, and he could see a pathway of light reaching from it to his room.
"Along the pathway were people passing from this earth to the stars. Angels waited to receive them, and as they reached the star people came out to welcome them. Kissing their friends tenderly, they went away together down avenues of light. But there was one who waited patiently near the entrance of the star and asked the guide who led the people thither if her brother had not yet come.
"'Not yet,' he replied kindly, and as she turned sadly away the little brother reached out his arms toward her, and said, 'Here I am sister; I am coming to you.'
"As she turned her beaming eyes on him, the star was shining into the room, and he could see its rays of light through his tears. From that hour the child looked on that star as his future home, where he would some day meet his angel sister again.
"And he waited, oh! so patiently, and the years rolled slowly by. He grew to manhood, and still the star shone down upon him at night. Then he grew to be an old man with gray hair and wrinkled face, and his steps were slow and feeble. Others had gone before him to the star. A little brother who died while he was young—his mother—his daughter—and now surely his own time had come.
"One night he lay upon a bed of sickness, and as his children gathered around him he suddenly cried out, as he had long ago, 'I see the star.' Then they whispered to each other, 'He is dying,' and he heard them, and said: 'I am. My age is falling from me like a mantle, and I move toward the star as a child. And, O my Father, now I thank thee that the star has so often opened to receive those dear ones who await me!'
"And next day the star was shining, and it still shines, upon his grave."
Harry had been lulled to sleep by the sound of his sister's voice, and in the dim light Mary could see that he was smiling in his dreams. Were his dreams, she wondered, about Stories of Starland?