"I don't understand," muttered the old man, but he asked no more, and presently dropped asleep. Ellen watched him for a long time, then she went across the hall to her old room, where Hester stood looking at a little girl, who lay on the bed sleeping soundly, with the pink doll hugged tight in her arms.
"She is just like yourself, Miss Ellen," said Hester, with joyful tears in her eyes,—"just like your old self, with a thought more brown in the hair. Ah! good times have begun again for my poor old master; the light has come back to the house."
But neither Hester nor Ellen saw the white-robed angel, who bent over the old man's bed with a face of immortal joy, and sang low songs of peace to make sleep deep and healing. The dark spirit has fled away.
Meantime Dickie, unconscious messenger of Fate, scrambling easily over the roofs, had gained his own room, and was comfortably tucked up in his little bed. His dreams were of dolls, rocking-horses, black cats. So soundly did he sleep, that, when morning came, Mally had to shake him and call loudly in his ear before she could wake him up.
"Why, Dick!" she cried, "look at your night-gown. It's all over dust, and there are one—two—three tears in the cotton. What have you been doing?"
But Dickie could not tell.
"I dweamed that I walked about on the woof," he said. "But I guess I didn't weally, did I?"
