.

But if any one had happened to go into the garden after the household
was asleep, and had come upon the toy water-wheel, working away in
starlight or moonlight, how little, even if he had caught sight of the
nearly invisible thread, and had discovered that the wheel was winding
it up, would he have thought what the tiny machine was about! How little
would he have thought that its business was with the infinite! that it
was in connection with the window of an eternal world--namely, Willie's
soul--from which at a given moment it would lift the curtains, namely,
the eyelids, and let the night of the outer world in upon the thought
and feeling of the boy! To use a likeness, the wheel was thus ever
working to draw up the slide of a _camera obscura_, and let in whatever
pictures might be abroad in the dreams of the day, that the watcher
within might behold them.

Indeed, one night as he came home from visiting a patient, soon after
Willie had at length taught his watchman his duty, Mr Macmichael did
come upon the mill, and was just going to turn the water off at the
well, which he thought Willie had forgotten to do, when he caught
sight of the winding thread--for the moon was full, and the Doctor was
sharp-sighted.

"What _can_ this be now?" he said to himself. "Some new freak of
Willie's, of course. Yes; the thread goes right up to his window! I
dare say if I were to stop and watch I should see something happen in
consequence. But I am too tired, and must go to bed."

Just as he thought thus with himself, the wheel stopped. The next moment
the blind of Willie's window was drawn up, and there stood Willie, his
face and his white gown glimmering in the moonlight. He caught sight of
his father, and up went the sash.

"O papa!" he cried; "I didn't think it was you I was going to see!"

"Who was it then you thought to see?" asked his father.

"Oh, nobody!--only the night herself, and the moon perhaps."

"What new freak of yours is this, my boy?" said his father, smiling.

"Wait a minute, and I'll tell you all about it," answered Willie.

Out he came in his night-shirt, his bare feet dancing with pleasure at
having his father for his midnight companion. On the grass, beside the
ruins, in the moonlight, by the gurgling water, he told him all about
it.

"Yes, my boy; you are right," said his father. "God never sleeps; and it
would be a pity if we never saw Him at his night-work."

[Illustration: "ON THE GRASS, BES