A little pause, during which crickets shrilled, then, in a softer voice:

"Blow him again to me
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps."

Another pause--and still more softly:

"Wreathe me no gaudy chaplet;
Make it from simple flowers
Plucked from the lowly valley
After the summer showers."

The coolness of the August wind touched Amos' face, "Oh! Patience,
Patience--" he murmured.

Lydia sat for a moment or two with the sleeping baby in her arms,
looking down on her with a curious gentle intentness. Then she rose
carefully, and as carefully deposited little Patience on the bed. This
done, she untied the balloon and carried it out with her to the little
landing. There was a window here into which the August moon was
beginning to shine. Lydia sat down with the balloon and felt of it
carefully.

"Aren't balloons the most wonderful things, almost as wonderful as
bubbles," she murmured. "I love the smell of them. Think what they
can do, how they can float, better than birds! How you want to squeeze
them but you don't dast! I'd rather have gone to the circus than to
heaven."