On Angels' Wings

by Mrs. Greene

But even while she was looking at it wonderingly, the Lord Jesus stooped down and kissed the child on the forehead; and she heard him say in a low voice, as he leaned over her, "No more tears."

Then Violet remembered that she had heard those words somewhere before, and she stirred in her sleep, and stretched out her hand towards the table on which lay her mother's Bible, and the book with the spotted cover. But before she could find them, she awoke with a sudden start and a scream, for, from the fort across the river one of the great cannon had been fired off, and which always shook the town from end to end; and the window-frames were still rattling, and the Noah's ark animals falling down over the cushions beside her, when she awoke.

"What is that?" she cried, hastily clutching at the rails of her chair to draw herself up from her pillows. "Evelina, what was that dreadful noise?"

Either Evelina was not in the room or the noise had deafened her, for she did not answer Violet's question; and before she could speak again or look round, there was another roar of cannon from the fort, and once more the window-frames rattled and the animals fell pell-mell upon the cushioned window-seat beneath.

"Evelina! Evelina! where art thou? why dost thou not answer?" cried Violet, who, suddenly aroused from a delicious dream of rest and peace, had scarcely yet realized either where she was or what was going on.

She sat up now, and gazed around the room with a flushed face and anxious eyes; but no Evelina was there, though the carriage was still drawn out in the middle of the room, and the new brown hat was lying on the coverlet; and gradually Violet remembered that this was the afternoon that she was to have tea with the policeman and Ella under the trees on the hill.

But surely the afternoon must be almost over now, for the evening shadows were already creeping into the room; and the pigeons were clustering on the window-sill beside her, looking for their usual meal, as they always did ere they went to roost.

"Evelina, where art thou?" she cried once more, as she gazed at the door leading into the little room which once had been her mother's long ago; but no answer came from there either, only another dreadful roar from the cannon, which put all the pigeons to flight, and pitched Noah's wife headlong on the carpet.

Violet had often heard them firing from the fort before, so, after the first three or four great bangs, it did not frighten her so much, only it made her head ache; but presently, leaning a little forward and looking through the window opposite her chair, she saw now that some great event must have happened, for people were racing down the street eagerly, and some were waving their hats, and some had on no hats at all, while, far off in the distance, she could hear a great sound of voices like a deafening cheer of joy.

Again the cannon roared, and again there came the same hoarse shout, which seemed to come from somewhere down near the barracks. And now the people in the street were shouting also as they ran along; and so eager and breathless was their race, that when a woman stumbled and fell on the pathway no one turned to lift her up, or to notice the white face which for many minutes afterwards remained turned up motionless towards the sky.