thought, "May God give him happiness, and enable me to help him and to
lessen his sorrow. I could make any sacrifice for him!" Usually, also,
there would be some favourite toy--a china dog or hare--stuck into the
bed-corner behind the pillow, and it would please me to think how warm
and comfortable and well cared-for it was there. Also, I would pray God
to make every one happy, so that every one might be contented, and also
to send fine weather to-morrow for our walk. Then I would turn myself
over on to the other side, and thoughts and dreams would become jumbled
and entangled together until at last I slept soundly and peacefully,
though with a face wet with tears.

Do in after life the freshness and light-heartedness, the craving for
love and for strength of faith, ever return which we experience in our
childhood's years? What better time is there in our lives than when
the two best of virtues--innocent gaiety and a boundless yearning for
affection--are our sole objects of pursuit?

Where now are our ardent prayers? Where now are our best gifts--the pure
tears of emotion which a guardian angel dries with a smile as he sheds
upon us lovely dreams of ineffable childish joy? Can it be that life has
left such heavy traces upon one's heart that those tears and ecstasies
are for ever vanished? Can it be that there remains to us only the
recollection of them?




XVI -- VERSE-MAKING

RATHER less than a month after our arrival in Moscow I was sitting