THE FIFTH LETTER.
THE ROSE CROWN.
For Clara.
Dear, tender-hearted little Clara:—In the olden time, there was a beautiful superstition in Germany, that on Christmas eve our Saviour, just as he was when a little child here below, comes at midnight in at the door, and fills all those children's shoes with gifts, who have followed His example of goodness and obedience. You know that you hang up your stockings, and Santa Claus comes down the chimney; but the little German children believe that they are far more blessed. It is a beautiful idea, for it brings Him, who for our sakes became a little child on earth, more closely and lovingly to the children's hearts. They grow up sure of His love and sympathy, from infancy to old age.
I have asked Sarah ("the doctor") to write me another story after the German fashion, on purpose for you. She has given me this "Rose Crown;" and the story turns upon the sweet and solemn belief of the German children.
You will perceive that the little Gottfried in the story thought of this with such intensity, and with such perfect faith in its truth, as to cause him to walk in his sleep, like a somnambulist. No doubt your dear mother can tell you many strange and extraordinary stories of somnambulists, who do the most wonderful and startling things while in this kind of trance state, of which they are utterly unconscious when they awake.
I hope this story will please my dear little Clara; it is called
THE ROSE CROWN.
"It was Christmas eve, and a cold winter's day. The flakes of snow fell softly and thickly, and had already covered the earth with a white cloak.
"At one of the windows of the large house that stands on the top of the hill, where the purple violets first peep out in the spring-time, stood the little Gottfried and his sister Marie.