answered, with a sigh; indeed, the child's talk had struck a vein of
thought familiar to his own mind, and, what is more, it deeply
interested him; there was a quaint, far-off wisdom in it.

"It is pleasant to-night, is it not, Mr. Fraser?" said the little
maid, "though everything is dying. The things die softly without any
pain this year; last year they were all killed in the rain and wind.
Look at that cloud floating across the moon, is it not beautiful? I
wonder what it is the shadow of; I think all the clouds are shadows of
something up in heaven."

"And when there are no clouds?"

"Oh! then heaven is quite still and happy."

"But heaven is always happy."

"Is it? I don't understand how it can be always happy if _we_ go
there. There must be so many to be sorry for."

Mr. Fraser mused a little; that last remark was difficult to answer.
He looked at the fleecy cloud, and, falling into her humour, said--

"I think your cloud is the shadow of an eagle carrying a lamb to its
little ones."

"And I think," she answered confidently, "that it is the shadow of an
angel carrying a baby home."

Again he was silenced; the idea was infinitely more poetical than his