The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356,
October 23, 1886., by Various

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Title: The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886.

Author: Various

Release Date: May 15, 2006 [EBook #18395]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER

VOL. VIII.--NO. 356.

OCTOBER 23, 1886.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

A DREAM OF QUEENS' GARDENS.[1]

A STORY FOR GIRLS.--IN TWO PARTS.

BY DANIEL DORMER. Author of "Out of the Mists."

PART II.

A QUEEN'S DREAM.

[Illustration: "LILACS AND LABURNUM TREES BLOOM ABUNDANTLY AROUND."]

Yet the recollection of that book is helping to soften Hazel. There is a
tender bit of writing at the close of the lecture which can hardly fail
to reach any woman's heart, unless it be wholly hardened; and Hazel's is
not a hard heart. So she muses on it, growing gradually calmer and
happier. After all, she might be of some use in the world if she were to
try, and if One Divine would be with her.

She stoops down to throw some coal on the fire. She is too much
exhausted physically to make it up carefully; but with an effort piles
on large blocks and small indiscriminately, then throws in a handful of
matches from a box within reach. What strange chaos there seems to be in
the grate after a little while! One after another the matches go off
with a phiz and short-lived flare, and each seems to light up a more
curious scene than the last. From being mere piled-up blocks of coal in
a grate, they grow to be a half blocked up entrance to some unknown
place. There is a large shining black portal, half ruined, surrounded
with _debris_. By degrees Hazel's languid curiosity is excited, and she
wonders whither it leads. Why should she not explore?... The next match
which takes fire lights up the slight form leaning far back in the big
chair, with the soft, golden brown hair half loosened, and the dark,
shadowed eyes fast closed. And Hazel has passed through the dark
gateway, and is in a wonderful wor