g out of all the
houses, smiling and singing, and bowing to one another; little children
were going together with flowers in their hands, singing, and answering
the tones of the great bells; and one little child, as it passed, looked
right up at the great Doctor Faust, and held out its white lily. The
bells chimed, and the singing grew sweeter and clearer.

"If there is something joyful in the world, surely some one will tell
me," said the man; and he went out into the morning.

It had rained in the night; there were pools in the street, and the
leaves glistened. "How bright the light is!" he thought, and "how
strange the flowers look blooming in the sun!" But the birds flew away
when he came, and this made the strange longing in the lonely man's
heart grow into pain. So he stepped back in the shadow and looked into
all the happy faces as they passed, and listened to the singing.

But no one stopped to tell him anything. They were so full of joy that
they did not feel his touch, and his words when he spoke were swept
right up into the song and the pealing of the joy-bells.

Girls in white veils, with stalks of the most beautiful lilies in their
hands, passed him in a long line, and the boys came after, in new
clothes, and shoes that squeaked. But he only saw their shining,
upturned faces. They were so beautiful as they sang, that tears stood in
the smiling eyes of all the fathers and mothers and neighbors who
followed after. Little children holding each other's hands went
together, and one little one had a queer woolly lamb on wheels trundling
behind him.

"Can it be," said the old man, "that there is a deep joy in the world?
will no one tell me?" And he turned and went with the people; and after
awhile he met a young girl.

She was not singing, but the most beautiful light shone from her face;
so he knew she was thinking of the deep joy, and he asked her what it
was, and why the people were glad.

She looked at him with loving wonder, and then she told him it was
Easter morning, when everything in the wide world remembers fully that
the joy can never die. "It is here always," she told him.

"Always?" said the old man; and he shook his head sadly.

"Always," she said; and she took his hand and led him out of the throng
into the most beautiful ways. He did not know that in the whole world
there were such wonderful grassy lanes. Why, there were hedges with
star-flowers here and there; apple trees were blooming,