"How does it look there?"
"Oh, beautiful, most beautiful! It shines and gleams so silvery, and it is so calm and quiet, and there are mountains and valleys there just like ours, only they are not coloured, they are just pure light!"
"Did you see the man in the moon?"
"No, I didn't see him; Uncle Leuthold said there are no people in the moon; but I don't believe him. They are only so far off that we can't see them. And they must be much happier and better than we are here; I'm sure they never beat children; and who knows whether perhaps the dear God himself does not live there? If I could fly, I would fly up there!" And she gazed upward with beaming eyes, and a long sigh escaped from her little breast.
"No, dear Ernestine, you must not fly away; no one can tell that the moon is as lovely near to, as it is so far off. And it is very nice here, too, for when you grow up you can be either a mamma or an aunt, and then no one can do anything to you. No one ever strikes my aunt or my mamma--no one!"
But Ernestine was no longer conscious of the child's prattle; her eyes closed, her beloved book dropped from her hands; Ole Luckoie, the gentle Northern god of slumber, had arisen from its pages. He had poured balm into her painful wound, and extended his canopy, with its thousands of gay pictures, over her soul.
Angelika looked at her for awhile, and then asked, "Are you asleep again?" and, upon receiving no answer, she was quite content, and got softly down from the high stool, and seated herself again upon her chair with the grave air of a sentinel. At last Heim, with Herr Neuenstein, came home from the funeral, and the two gentlemen entered the apartment together.
"She has been talking with me," Angelika announced.
"What! has she come to herself?" asked the Geheimrath in pleased surprise.
"Oh, yes,--we talked about a great many things--and then she went to sleep again."