to little Barbara.

_Come thou, dear Prince, oh, come to us this holy Christmas time! Come
to the busy marts of earth, the quiet homes, the noisy streets, the humble
lanes; come to us all, and with thy love touch every human heart, that we
may know that love, and in its blessed peace bear charity to all
mankind_!

1886.




+THE MOUSE AND THE MOONBEAM+




THE MOUSE AND THE MOONBEAM


Whilst you were sleeping, little Dear-my-Soul, strange things happened;
but that I saw and heard them, I should never have believed them. The
clock stood, of course, in the corner, a moonbeam floated idly on the
floor, and a little mauve mouse came from the hole in the chimney corner
and frisked and scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor. The
little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced upon two
legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very daintily and always
very merrily.