et round the corner yonder--it is so narrow that my
beams can only glide for a minute along the walls of the house, but in
that minute I see enough to learn what the world is made of--in that
narrow street I saw a woman. Sixteen years ago that woman was a child,
playing in the garden of the old parsonage, in the country. The hedges
of rose-bush were old, and the flowers were faded. They straggled wild
over the paths, and the ragged branches grew up among the boughs of
the apple trees; here and there were a few roses still in bloom--not
so fair as the queen of flowers generally appears, but still they had
colour and scent too. The clergyman's little daughter appeared to me a
far lovelier rose, as she sat on her stool under the straggling hedge,
hugging and caressing her doll with the battered pasteboard cheeks.

"Ten years afterwards I saw her again. I beheld her in a splendid
ball-room: she was the beautiful bride of a rich merchant. I rejoiced
at her happiness, and sought her on calm quiet evenings--ah, nobody
thinks of my clear eye and my silent glance! Alas! my rose ran wild,
like the rose bushes in the garden of the parsonage. There are
tragedies in every-day life, and to-night I saw the last act of one.

"She was lying in bed in a house in that narrow street: she was sick
unto death, and the cruel landlord came up, and tore away the thin
coverlet, her only protection against the cold. 'Get up!' said he;
'your face is enough to frighten one. Get up and dress yourself, give
me money, or I'll turn you out into the street! Quick--get up!' She
answered, 'Alas! death is gnawing at my heart. Let me rest.' But he
forced her to get up and bathe her face, and put a wreath of roses in
her hair; and he placed her in a chair at the window, with a candle
burning beside her, and went away.

"I looked at her, and she was sitting motionless, with her hands in
her lap. The wind caught the open window and shut it with a crash, so
that a pane came clattering down in fragments; but still she never
moved. The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face;
and I saw that she was dead. There at the open window sat the dead
woman, preaching a sermon against _sin_--my poor faded rose out of the
parsonage garden!"

FOURTH EVENING.

"This evening I saw a German play acted," said the Moon. "It was in a
little town. A stable had been turned into a theatre; that is to say,
the stable had been left standing, and had been turned