“Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!” said her friend with a glance toward their visitor, as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses.

“So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me.  And the birds I hear!  Oh!” cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, “How they sing!”

There was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired and beautiful.  Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again.

“I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell better than other flowers.  For when I was a little child,” in a tone as though it were ages ago, “the children that I used to see early in the morning were very different from any others I ever saw.  They were not like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were never in pain.  They were not like the children of the neighbors; they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises; and they never mocked me.  Such numbers of them too!  All in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well.  They used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together, ‘Who is this in pain!  Who is this in pain!’ When I told them who it was, they answered, ‘Come and play with us!’ When I said ’I never play!  I can’t play,’ they swept about me and took me up, and made me light.  Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all together, ‘Have patience, and we will come again.’  Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, ’Who is this in pain!  Who is this in pain!’ And I used to cry out, ’Oh my blessed children, it’s poor me.  Have pity on me.  Take me up and make me light!’”

By degrees as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful again.  Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself.

“What poor fun you think me, don’t you,” she said to the visitor.  “You may well look tired of me.  But it’s Saturday night, and I won’t detain you.”

“That is to say, Miss Wren,” observed the visitor, rather weary of the person of the house, and quite ready to profit by her hint, “you wish me to go?”

“Well, it’s Saturday night,” she returned, “and my child’s coming home.  And my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of scolding.  I would rather you didn’t see my child.”

“A doll?” said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an explanation.

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, “Her father,” he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling figure of the child’s father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when he came home in such a pitiable condition.