The tears which had not fallen over the happy little child who had gone to be an angel, fell fast over the simple tokens of gratitude and repentance she had left behind her; and faithful was the care bestowed upon them by our Maggie and Bessie.
Not with any thought of taking them to the flower show, however; it was only for Dolly's sake: it would never do to display these wretched little plants beside some of the really beautiful and flourishing things which their more fortunate brothers and cousins had raised. Besides, these were not of their own growing, and Maggie and Bessie had, long since, given up all thought of trying for a prize.
A few days after Dolly's death, Mrs. Bradford took up Maggie's second volume of "The Complete Family," which she had not looked over for some time, and there she found written something which touched her very much. Mingled with many other things, giving an account of their summer among the mountains, and written in Maggie's own droll, peculiar way, ran the story of Lem and Dolly, of their persecutions, and of the difficulty she and Bessie had had in forgiving their many injuries; but all that was not new to the mother, who now read for the first time what Maggie had written during the last week. It ran thus, leaving out Maggie's mistakes:—
"M. and B. Happy were very thankful to our Father in heaven, because he let them be of a mind to forgive Dolly. If they had not forgiven her, and made up their resolutions to do a kind thing for her, then B. would have run away when she saw Dolly, and not waited to speak to her and give the banana, and so nobody might have known that Dolly was sick, and she might have died without knowing about Jesus, who died for her; but she never knew it till Bessie told her. And, oh, how dreadful that would have been for M. and B. Happy! but God was so good as to spare them of it, and Dolly learned about Jesus, and loved Him, and wanted to please Him, only she did not have much time; but Jesus does not care about that, so long as she believed on Him, and loved Him, and He took Dolly away to His own heaven to live with Him. And M. and B. Happy were happy about it, even if Dolly was dead, because papa and mamma, and all our grown-up, wise people, think she is happy with Jesus; and we hope our Father will let it be a little jewel to carry to Him, when the angel takes us over the river, and the Elder Brother will say we did it unto Him, because we did it to His poor little lamb that did not know about Him. And now M. and B. Happy do not mind so much about the gardens, even though they can't try for a prize, and B. says she had rather have Dolly's little marigold than the prettiest prize that ever was, but I am afraid M. would not; but then, you see, she is not so very perfect as B., and besides I don't like the smell of the marigolds: I think it's awful. And God let M. have a very happy dream. M. knows it is foolish to think much about dreams, because they are not a bit of consequence, and she hopes any one who reads this will not think she was so foolish as to believe any thing about it; but it did make her feel a little glad about it, and B. liked it too. The dream was this: I was out by the lake with Bessie, but it was the night, and oh! there were so very many stars, and Dolly's little bed was out by the lake too, and she was in it, quite alive. And we heard voices all around, but we could not see where they came from; but we knew it was the angels, and they were calling to Dolly, and she came out of her bed, and tried to go, but she could not, because she had no wings. Then such a beautiful thing happened,—the stars came down out of the sky, and fixed themselves down to the ground where Dolly stood, and she went up, up, up on them, just as if they were steps, to heaven. And when she stepped over each one, it went right back to its place in the sky; but it left a long light behind it, like the shooting star we saw the other night; and at the top of the stair of stars was a soft, white cloud; and when Dolly came to it, a hand came out of the cloud, and took her in, and we knew she was quite safe, and would never come back again. But for all I was glad M. cried, and dear mamma came and woke her up, and asked me why I cried, and kissed me, and I told her I was glad Dolly went to heaven, because she had no precious mamma to kiss and love her, or to tell her troubles and happinesses to. So it was a very happy, grateful thing, all about Dolly."
A very happy, grateful thing, the dear mamma thought it too; and very happy, grateful tears were those which dimmed her eyes as she read her little daughter's simple story, and then thanked God that the lessons of love and forgiveness which were given to her little ones fell not upon stony ground, but took root and bore precious fruit in those tender young hearts.
