n, seized with one feeling of love and pity (for
they could remember how the poor boy used to be one of them and play in
the garden of God), soared above him. One came down and wiped off the
drops of sweat from his brow; another passed his soft hands over the
boy's face, and rested him; and another put comforting thoughts into his
soul.

Then the master looked up, and when he saw how the boy seemed suddenly
refreshed, he told him it was good to work and silly to be tired; and
when the boy heard these hard words, tears came into his eyes, and he
thought of his mother who used so tenderly to care for him, but had now
been gone long to the home of the angels.

Then some of the angel-children wiped away the tears which had come into
the boy's eyes, and another shook his beautiful wings over his head, so
that at once a cool breeze fell over him and hopeful words entered his
soul. Some of the children moved his arm up and down as he drove the
pegs into the boot, and he wondered how easily he was able to work.

All this time our earth-child stood apart, nodding his head sadly, and
when the others asked him the cause, he answered, "O, you do not know
how hard it is to live on the earth! See this poor boy; how far
different was it with him when he played with us in the gardens up
there!"

The children were silent; they knew not how to comfort him. They
thought, too, of the time when they should live on the earth.

Then they flew along and came to a large city, in which lived many
homeless children, who were led about by unkind and evil spirits; and
passed constantly by men and women, who did not so much as give them one
kind word.

As the angel-children wandered among them they shuddered: such strange
words filled the air, and so dark and dingy looked the houses where they
went in and out. Could it be that these children, who talked together in
angry moods, who rather sought the opportunity to trouble each other,
had ever played in that fountain, and laughed together in the heavenly
fields? "O," they sighed, "could we but once drive the evil spirits from
one of them, and whisper in his ear of the kind love of God!"

Then their wings fluttered and folded themselves over the head of a
large boy, whose clothes were dirty and tattered, his hair matted and
disordered, his body thin and wan, while the expression of his face was
very old and vacant. A slight girl, holding a little pail in her hand,
came along near him, and made