THE OLD WOMAN AND THE ENCHANTED SONG.
She had no sooner done this than the cloud began to descend slowly towards them, just as though it understood her summons, and, when it had
reached the place where she stood, it remained motionless.
Then she took up little Ruth in her arms, and stepped on to the cloud and sat down; and, after arranging herself and Ruth quite comfortably, she said something, which Ruth could not understand, and then the cloud began to rise, moving as easily as it had done before it came down from the sky.
While they were going up, Ruth was amazed to see how the garden and the beloved tree below became continually smaller and smaller; how, by-and-by, she could only distinguish the house, and how that became dimmer and dimmer, until it entirely disappeared from her sight.
Then she turned towards the old woman, and saw that her kind blue eyes lovingly regarded her; and so she still more forgot the home below, where, without doubt, her departure would pass unnoticed.
New objects began to attract her attention. The cloud on which they sat did not, like the others, just float over the earth, but it went proudly on, and came among the stars, and constellations of
stars, and she saw how many were clustered together, and no tongue could describe their beauty; and then the deep blue was ever about her, and she saw it away off in the distance, growing to a darker and darker shade, until it became like the air of midnight; while ever from its darkness shone out those immense stars, and clusters of stars.
Then the most beautiful sight of all was when some star glided past her, and shot afar off into the dark blue beyond—there was such dazzling glory in it!