minstrels--lifted their green tops far up into the crystal air.
Flowers of a thousand hues and sweet odours were woven into forms
and figures of exquisite beauty upon the carpet of living green
spread over the teeming earth, while groups of little children
sported one with another, and mingled their happy voices with the
melody of birds.

Yet, amid all this external joy and beauty, the hand of grief still
lay upon the mother's heart; and when she looked upon the sportive
infants around her, she sighed for her own babe. Even as she sighed,
one of the maidens turned to her and said, while her whole
countenance was lit up with a glow of delight--

"It has come. A new babe is born unto heaven."

And, as she spoke, she gathered her arms quickly to her bosom, and
the wondering mother saw lying thereon her own child. The other
maiden was already bending over the infant--already had she greeted
its coming with a kiss of love. Quickly both retired within the
dwelling, and the bereaved mother went with them, eager to receive
the babe she had lost.

"Oh, my child! my child!" she said. "Give me my child."

And ere the words had died upon her lips, the maiden who had
received the babe gave it into her arms, when she clasped it with a
wild delight, and rained tears of gladness upon its face.

For a time, the two maidens looked upon the mother in silence, and
in their bright countenances love and pity were blended. At length,