charm, the delicious fruit lay, full and ripe, neglected on their dish.
Sleep would not come to the child; weary and in pain, she had laid there a long, long time, her poor little body wasting slowly away towards the grave.
"Let us give her rest and comfort," said the angel-children; and, waving their wings over her, she fell to sleeping.
The nurse said, then, there might be hope. Listen and hear,—what bright hope there was, indeed!
They whispered to her, that soon her pain should cease, and that, for her trust and patience, she should go to God's beautiful garden. They showed her the fountains and the birds; they told her how she should again ride upon the clouds, and study from the great books of God. Then in her sleep she smiled, and the nurse, who was watching her face, wept for joy, and exclaimed,
"There is hope! there is hope!"
Yes, there was hope!
When the little girl awoke, there was a more
heavenly patience still, in her soul, and a longing to meet the loving glances of the angel-children again.
As the children wended their flight back to the gardens, and sat down beneath the green trees, and ate of their delicious fruit, they strove in vain to bring back the brightness to the face of the earth-baby.