sometimes reading to them.

The children from the rainbow walked slowly up the aisle between the row
of beds, and, strangely enough, no one seemed to look at them or pay the
least attention, any more than if they had not been there, and at last
Teddy began to believe that they could not see them.

Often the little strange children stopped to smooth a pillow or to
softly stroke the cheek or hand of one of the little earth children.

Here and there one would linger behind the others, by some bed, and
after a moment would lay its bunch of flowers on the pillow. Then the
little child in the bed would turn its head and smile, even if it were
asleep, and its face would shine as if with some inward happiness. The
whole room seemed filled with the perfume of flowers, and Teddy wondered
that no one paid any attention to it.

At last they came to a bed where a little child was lying fast asleep,
and a woman was sitting beside the child and fanning it. Suddenly its
eyes opened, and the moment they turned toward the rainbow children,
Teddy knew that it saw them.

It lay looking for a moment and then it smiled and feebly tried to wave
its hand. "What is it, dear?" asked the woman, bending over the child,
but it paid no attention to her, for it was gazing at the rainbow
children.

"Oh, he sees us! he sees us!" they cried, clapping their hands joyfully.
"He'll be coming across the rainbow soon."