transparent; he lifted his head, and behold! the dazzling white light was not the white of a snow wall, it came from the large wings of an angel stooping over him, an angel with eyes beaming with love.  The angel’s form seemed to spring from the pages of the Bible, as from the pitcher of a lily-blossom; he extended his arms, and lo! the narrow walls of the snow-hut sank back like a mist melting before the daylight.  Once again the green meadows and autumnal-tinted woods of the sailor’s home lay around him, bathed in quiet sunshine; the stork’s nest was empty, but the apples still clung to the wild apple-tree; though leaves had fallen, the red hips glistened, and the blackbird whistled in the little green cage that hung in the lowly window of his childhood’s home; the blackbird whistled the tune he had taught him, and the old grandmother wound chickweed about the bars of the cage, as her grandson had been wont to do.  And the smith’s pretty young daughter stood drawing water from the well, and as she nodded to the grandmother, the latter beckoned to her, and held up a letter to show her, a letter that had come that morning from the cold northern lands, from the North Pole itself, where the old woman’s grandson now was—­safe under God’s protecting hand.  And the two women, old and young, laughed and wept by turns—­and he the while, the young sailor whose body was sleeping amid ice and snow, his spirit roaming in the world of dreams, under the angel’s wings, saw and heard it all, and laughed and wept with them.  And from the letter these words were read aloud, “Even in the uttermost parts of the sea, His right hand shall hold me fast”:  and a sweet, solemn music was wafted round him, and the angel drooped his wings; like a soft protecting veil they fell closer over the sleeper.

The dream was ended; all was darkness in the little snow-hut, but the Bible lay under the sailor’s head, faith and hope abode in his heart.  God was with him, and his home was with him, “even in the uttermost parts of the sea.”

“SOMETHING”

By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

“I will be Something,” declared the eldest of five brothers; “I will be of use in the world; be it ever so humble a position that I may hold, let me be but useful, and that will be Something.  I will make bricks; folk cannot do without them, so I shall at least do Something.”

“Something very little, though,” replied the second brother.  “Why, it is as good as nothing! it is work that might be done by a machine.  Better be a mason, as I intend to be.  Then one belongs to a guild, becomes a citizen, has a banner of one’s own.  Nay, if all things go well, I may become a master, and have apprentices and workmen under me.  That will be Something!”