and shed a glow of happiness right into the
hearts of the two who read it. The air was warmer, the sun shone more
brightly, and just by the foot of the Fountain, pushing through the
snow, sprang one blue head of palest forget-me-not.

As the letters on the Scroll became plainer and plainer, the paper
slowly rolled up and shrunk away, until it had disappeared altogether.

The sempstress carried back the child up the steep staircase, laid her
tenderly on her bed, and hurried away to her own attic.

In her absence strange things had happened. The room was swept and
tidy, the flowers were watered, and the piece of work she had left
half done was lying finished on the broad window seat. The poor woman
looked round her in astonishment. She went downstairs to enquire if
any neighbours had prepared this surprise for her, but they only
stared at her, and told her "she must have left her wits in the Market
Place," and that "that was what came of leaving your own duties to
look after other people's."

The sempstress did not listen to their taunts, for a song of joy was
welling up in her heart--a song so sweet and true, it might have been
the echo of that sung by the angels. Never had life seemed so
beautiful to her. The ill looks of the neighbours appeared to her to
be smiles of kindness and love; their hard speeches sounded soft and
altered; the steep stairs to her room were not so steep, her attic not
so bare and desolate. Life was no longer lonely, for the song in her
heart brought her all the happiness she had ever hoped for.

The sick child, too, found the same wonderful change in all that
surrounded her. The aunt with whom she lived, who had always been so
careless and unloving, now seemed to the child to be kind and gentle.
Her aching back was less painful, her thoughts as she lay on her bed
were bright and happy. The Angel's message had brought sunshine to the
lives of the only two who could read and understand it.

* * * * *

In time the sick child went to live with the sempstress, and their
love for each other grew and strengthened, and overflowed in a
thousand little acts of kindness to all who came near them. Their room
was filled with brightness. The birds flew to perch on the window-sill
and sing in the early mornings; flowers bloomed in the cracks of the
old stonework; the sempstress sang as she worked, and whenever she
left her sewing to carry the child out into the Market Plac