.

I was sitting at the window when it began. I was rather tired--I suppose
I had been excited by its being my birthday, for dear granny always
contrived to give me some extra pleasures on that day--and I remember I
had a new doll in my lap, whom I had been undressing to be ready to be
put to bed with me. I almost think I had fallen asleep for a minute or
two, for it seems as if all of a sudden I had caught sight of the sky.
It must have been particularly beautiful, for I called out--

'Oh, look, look, they're lighting all the beauty candles in heaven.
Look, Dollysweet, it's for my birfday.'

Grandmamma was in the room and she heard me. But for a minute or two she
did not say anything, and I went on talking to Dolly and pretending or
fancying that Dolly talked back to me.

Then granny came softly behind me and stood looking out too. I did not
know she was there till I heard her saying some words to herself. Of
course I did not understand them, yet the sound of them must have stayed
in my ears. Since then I have learnt the verses for myself, and they
always come back to me when I see anything very beautiful--like the
trees and the flowers in summer, or the stars at night, and above all,
lovely sunsets.

But all I heard then was just--

'Good beyond compare,
If thus Thy meaner works are fair'--

and all I _remembered_ was--

'... beyond compare,
... are fair.'

I said them over and over to myself, and a funny fancy grew out of them,
when I got to understand what 'beyond' meant. I took it into my head
that 'compare' was the name of the hills, which, as I have said, came
between us and the horizon on the west, and prevented our seeing the
last of the sunset.

And I used to make wonderful fairy stories to myself about the country
beyond or behind those hills--the country I called 'Compare,' where
something, or everything--for I had lost the words just before, was
'fair' in some marvellous way I could not even picture to myself. For I
soon learnt to know that 'fair' meant beautiful--I think I learnt it
first from some of the old fairy stories grandmamma used to tell me when
we sat at work.

That evening she took me up in her arms and kissed me.

'The sun is going to bed,' she said to me, 'and so must my little
Helena, even though it is her birthday.'

'And so must Dollysweet,' I said. I always called that doll
'Dollysweet,' and I ran the words together as if it was one name.

'Y