ime, basking
contented in the light of her sun, between whom and her the cloud could
not creep, only between her and Willie.

But what delighted him most of all was to catch the moon dreaming. That
was when the old moon, tumbled over on her back, would come floating up
the east, like a little boat on the rising tide of the night, looking
lost on the infinite sea! Dreaming she must be surely!--she looked
nothing but dreaming; for she seemed to care about nothing--not even
that she was old and worn, and withered and dying,--not even that,
instead of sinking down in the west, into some deep bed of dim repose,
she was drifting, haggard and battered, untidy and weak and sleepy, up
and up into the dazzling halls of the sun. Did she know that his light
would clothe her as with a garment, and hide her in the highest recesses
of his light-filled ceiling? or was it only that she was dreaming,
dreaming--sweet, cool, tender dreams of her own, and neither knew nor
cared about anything around her? What a strange look all the night wore
while the tired old moon was thus dreaming of the time when she would
come again, back through the vanishing and the darkness--a single curved
thread of a baby moon, to grow and grow to a great full-grown lady moon,
able to cross with fearless gaze the gulf of the vaulted heavens--alone,
with neither sleep nor dreams to protect her!

There were many other nights, far more commonplace, which yet Willie
liked well to look out upon, but which could not keep him long from his
bed. There was, for instance, the moonless and cloudy night, when, if he
had been able to pierce the darkness to the core, he would have found
nothing but blackness. It had a power of its own, but one cannot say it
had much to look at. On such a night he would say to himself that the
day was so sound asleep he was dreaming of nothing at all, and make
haste to his nest. Then again there was the cold night of black frost,
when there was cloud enough to hide the stars and the moon, and yet a
little light came soaking through, enough to reveal how hopeless and
dreary the earth was. For in such nights of cold, when there is no snow
to cover them, the flowers that have crept into their roots to hide from
the winter are not even able to dream of the spring;--they grow quite
stupid and benumbed, and sleep outright like a polar bear or a dormouse.
He never could look long at such a night.

Neither did he care to look long when a loud wind wa