Daisy's Necklace, and What Came of It

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Mortimer, who had been gazing dreamily at the beach—which grew fainter and fainter, till it seemed like a white thread running through the selvage of blue drapery—turned his eyes on Bell.

"Bell," said he, quietly, "as you sit there in the shadows, with your beautiful hair folded over your forehead, you look like an angel!"

"Do I?"

"I can put my hand on your neck, yet you seem far away from me."

"Come, rest your head in my lap, Mort," said the girl, tenderly, "and I will tell you of a real true angel who once came into this world."

The chestnut locks of the boy looked darker against her white dress, as Bell bent over him, and commenced, in a low, silvery voice, an old angel legend. She was in the midst of a strange description of Paradise, when a tremulous voice came up the stairway—

"Come to tea, children!"

Then the two looked at each other curiously. It was so odd to be called to tea, and they in Heaven! It was a long step from Paradise to the supper-table; but the dream was shattered. Bell laughed. Then they closed the window, and descended to the room below, where Nanny had prepared the evening meal of snowy bread and milk, and ripe purple whortleberries. It was very queer to see the three sitting at table—to see homely-looking, but kind-hearted Nanny, between the two children, like a twilight between two pleasant mornings.

When supper was over, and while Nanny was washing the tea-things, the children went down to the beach, shell hunting. The white moon stood directly over the sea, and the waves were full of silvery arrows, as if Diana had scattered them from her quiver. Mortimer's eyes drank in the sight, as they had a thousand times before, for Nature is ever new to her lovers. In the measured roll of the sea, he heard the diapason of a grand poem, and the far-off thunder, heard now and then, was the chorus of the gods.

But Heaven rapt the heart of little Bell! The waves fell on her finer ear like subtlest music; to her they were harps, and the fingers of angels were touching them, while the thunder was "God walking overhead!"