ow the garden and the
beloved tree below became continually smaller and smaller; how,
by-and-by, she could only distinguish the house, and how that became
dimmer and dimmer, until it entirely disappeared from her sight.

Then she turned towards the old woman, and saw that her kind blue eyes
lovingly regarded her; and so she still more forgot the home below,
where, without doubt, her departure would pass unnoticed.

New objects began to attract her attention. The cloud on which they sat
did not, like the others, just float over the earth, but it went proudly
on, and came among the stars, and constellations of stars, and she saw
how many were clustered together, and no tongue could describe their
beauty; and then the deep blue was ever about her, and she saw it away
off in the distance, growing to a darker and darker shade, until it
became like the air of midnight; while ever from its darkness shone out
those immense stars, and clusters of stars.

Then the most beautiful sight of all was when some star glided past her,
and shot afar off into the dark blue beyond--there was such dazzling
glory in it!

Sometimes they would be quite near enough to the stars they passed to
discern the people who dwelt upon them, and she felt for them a
friendship at once, and only longed that she might go down and tell them
so.

The child had forgotten she was plain and odd; she did not think to ask
herself whether the people on those bright stars, so beautiful and
happy, might not repulse her for her homeliness.

At last they did approach one bright star, and Ruth saw, to her delight,
that, when the cloud had come down into a lovely garden, the old woman
stepped off from it, then took her up also, and placed her on the
ground. Then the cloud, which had been their chariot (and a far better
one it was than ever king had to be drawn in), rose upward, and began
its gentle course in the sky.

When the old woman saw how Ruth looked after it, she said to her:

"I use all the clouds in that way, more or less, and all those about
your earth do many such a service while the people little dream of it.
In fact, every one there looks down upon the ground too much; they have
no idea of the goodly things they would find if they searched upwards
more."

The old woman sighed as she said this. Such a happy and pleasant looking
old woman to have sighed so deeply!

Then she took Ruth's hand, and led her towards her cottage, which was
the most beaut