"What will my father and mother say if I do not come home?" sighed the child's soul. "Oh, my poor dear parents! Never to see the pleasant sunlight or the blue sky! To stay down here for ever in this narrow, dark coffin—oh, how dreadful!" And if a soul could have died with terror, grief, and longing, that would certainly have been the fate of the little girl's spirit The hours passed silently over her and her prison. The hours became days. How many had gone by? The little soul did not know. At last she sank into a kind of stupor, and almost ceased to feel.
But one day something approached her prison, the edge of the bell was raised, and the water-sprite's rough voice said, "Come out."
The opening through which the light was peeping was small, but souls, with their light transparent forms, do not need much space, and in a moment the little spirit slipped out, and now stood trembling before the wicked water-man.
"Thou mayest play here for a little," he said; "but in an hour thou must return to the bell."
The soul looked up. She had been so long in that dismal tomb, and now she found herself all at once in God's gloriously beautiful creation, though only for a short time, and as a prisoner! She forgot her past sorrow, and thought not of the future; she rejoiced in the delightful present, and looked up at the sun, which in noontide splendour stood in the blue canopy of heaven, sending its rays down on the green meadow, their brilliance softened by the crystal flood.
Then she looked around. Before her stood the splendid palace, with its glittering walls and transparent pillars, and round her swam the prettiest little fishes as fearlessly as if the little soul had been an acquaintance for years.
A lovely young girl came out of the shining building, and asked her to play with her.
The old water-sprite frowned in displeasure at his daughter's friendliness, but the little elf did not look at him, and the child's soul thought, "I must go back to prison at any rate, and he cannot do anything worse to me!" So she took the friendly fairy's hand, and rose with her through the silvery flood, chasing the fishes and trying to grasp the sunbeams with her little transparent hand. Then she wound garlands of reeds, and let them rise to the top of the water, after she had pressed sweet kisses on them, and laden them with loving messages for her dear ones up above.
As she stood watching them with tearful longing as they rose nearer and nearer to her home, she heard herself called once more. The water-sprite stood behind her, seized her hand, and led her back to the bell. She turned for a last look at the clear blue sky; the next moment she was back in her dark and narrow prison.