ain before
the train can start. Now you have nestled down, and your dear hands
are folded; let your two eyes be folded, too, my sweet; for in a moment
you shall be rocked away, and away, away into the golden mists of Balow!

"Ting-long! Ting-a-long! Ting-long!"

"All aboard!"

"Toot! Toot! Toot!"

And so my little golden apple is off and away for Shut-Eye Town!

Slowly moveth the train, yet faster by degrees. Your hands are folded,
my beloved, and your dear eyes they are closed; and yet you see the
beauteous sights that skirt the journey through the mists of Balow.
And it is rockaway, rockaway, rockaway, that your speeding cradle
goes,--rockaway, rockaway, rockaway, through the golden glories that
lie in the path that leadeth to Shut-Eye Town.

"Toot! Toot!"

So crieth the whistle, and it is "down-brakes," for here we are at
Ginkville, and every little one knoweth that pleasant waking-place,
where mother with her gentle hands holdeth the gracious cup to her
sleepy darling's lips.

"Ting-long! Ting-a-long! Ting-long!" and off is the train again. And
swifter and swifter it speedeth,--oh, I am sure no other train speedeth
half so swiftly! The sights my dear one sees! I cannot tell of
them--one must see those beauteous sights to know how wonderful they
are!

"Shug-chug! Shug-chug! Shug-chug!"

On and on and on the locomotive proudly whirleth the train.

"Ting-long! Ting-a-long! Ting-long!"

The bell calleth anon, but fainter and evermore fainter; and fainter
and fainter groweth that other calling--"Toot! Toot! Toot!"--till
finally I know that in that Shut-Eye Town afar my dear one dreameth the
dreams of Balow.

This was the bedtime tale which I was wont to tell our little Mistress
Merciless, and at its end I looked upon her face to see it calm and
beautiful in sleep.

Then was I wont to kneel beside her little bed and fold my two
hands,--thus,--and let my heart call to the host invisible: "O guardian
angels of this little child, hold her in thy keeping from all the
perils of darkness and the night! O sovereign Shepherd, cherish Thy
little lamb and mine, and, Holy Mother, fold her to thy bosom and thy
love! But give her back to me,--when morning cometh, restore ye unto
me my little one!"

But once she came not back. She had spoken much of Master Sweetheart
and of that land of Ever-Plaisance whither he had gone. And she was
not afeared to make the journey alone; so once upon a time