Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mother’s door.
Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told
How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold,
Where, when all the pain was over—where, when all the tears were shed—
He would be a white-frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head.
Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Saviour’s love,
How He’d built for little children great big playgrounds up above,
Where they sang and played at hop-scotch, and at horses all the day,
And where beadles and policemen never frightened them away.
This was Nell’s idea of Heaven—just a bit of what she’d heard,