trees, would blow them out. How the little
mind longed to fathom the mystery! Once she had ventured to ask Miss
Matilda what those bright specks up in the sky were, and she answered,
in an indifferent sort of way, "Stars, you little silly goose,--why,
don't you know? They are stars." And then she was just about as wise and
as satisfied as she had been before.

She was so busy with her thoughts, that she did not perceive Mammy
Grace, as she drew the old, broken-backed rocking-chair up to the door,
and sitting down, with her elbows on her knees and her head upon her
hands, leaned forward, to discover, if possible, what the child was so
intently gazing at. She could discern no object in the deep twilight;
but, struck herself with the still beauty of the scene, she exclaimed,--

"Pooty night, a'n't it? How de stars of heaben do shine!"

The voice disturbed Tidy in her reverie. Her first impulse was to get
up and walk away, that she might finish out her thinking in some other
place, where she could be alone. But the thought flashed through her
mind, that perhaps the kind-looking old nurse at her side might be able
to tell her some of the many things she was so perplexed about; and,
almost before she knew she was speaking, she blurted out,--

"What's them things up thar?"

"Dem bright little shiny tings, honey, in de firm'ment? Laws, don' ye
know? Whar's ye lived all yer days, if ye don' know de stars when ye
sees 'em?"

"Who owns 'em? and what they stuck up ther for?" asked the child,
somewhat encouraged.

"Who owns 'em? Hi! dey's de property ob de Lord ob heaben, chile, I
reckons; and dey's put dar to gib us light o'nights. Jest see 'em shine!
and what a sight of 'em dar is, too; nobody can't count 'em noway. And
de Lord he hold 'em all in de holler ob his hand," said the old negress,
shaping her great black palm to suit the idea; "and he knows 'em all
by name, too. Specs 'tis wonderful; but ebery one ob dem leetle, teenty
tings has got a name, and de great Lord he 'members 'em ebery one."

Tidy's wonder was not at all diminished by what she heard; and the
questions she wanted to ask came up so fast in her mind, she hardly
knew which to utter first. What they were made out of, how they came and
went, what they meant by twinkling so, were things she had long desired
to know; but for the moment these were forgotten in the burning, eager
curiosity she had, now that she had heard the name of their Maker, to
know more