In the night Arminel awoke. There was bright moonlight in the room, and as she glanced at her sleeping sister, she saw traces of tears on Chloe’s pale face.
“My poor sister!” she said to herself. “She has been crying, and would not let me know it. I do not care for myself, if only dear Chloe could have her hens. I could bear the disappointment about my cow. How I wish it might be so.”
As the thought passed through her mind, a sweet feeling of peace and satisfaction stole over her. She closed her eyes and almost immediately fell asleep, and slept soundly.
Very soon after this in her turn Chloe awoke. She, too, sat up and looked at her sister. There was a smile on Arminel’s sleeping face which touched Chloe almost more than the traces of tears on her own had touched her sister.
“Poor dear Arminel,” she thought. “She is dreaming, perhaps, of her dun cow. How little I should mind my own disappointment if I could see her happy. Oh! I do wish she could have her cow!”
And having thought this, she, too, as her sister had done, fell asleep with a feeling of peace and hopefulness such as she had not had for long.
The winter sun was already some little way up on his journey when the sisters awoke the next morning, for they had slept much later than usual. Arminel was the first to start up with a feeling that something pleasant had happened.
“Chloe!” she exclaimed. “We have overslept ourselves. And on such a bright morning, too! How can it have happened?”
Chloe opened her eyes and looked about her with a smile.
“Yes, indeed,” she replied. “One could imagine it was summer time, and I have had such a good night, and such pleasant dreams.”