ortable! And she knows that if she keeps her thoughts
very busy she may not sleep. There is no clock anywhere near, there is
no sound whatever to break the deep stillness. The only way she can keep
herself awake is by thinking. So she thinks very hard. That girl has
often had a hard think--a very hard think--in the course of her life;
but never, never one like this before, when she buries herself in the
snow and forces her brain to keep her body awake.

"She tries first of all to count the minutes as they pass; but that is
sleepy work, more particularly as she is tired, and really sometimes
almost forgets herself for a minute. So she works away at some stiff,
long sums in arithmetic, doing mental arithmetic as rapidly as ever she
can. And so one hour passes, perhaps two. At the end of the second hour
something very strange happens. All of a sudden she feels that
arithmetic is pure nonsense--that it never leads anywhere nor does any
one any good; and she feels also that never in the whole course of her
life has she lain in a snugger bed than her snow-bed. And she remembers
the fairies and their music in the middle of the summer night;
and--hark! hark!--she hears them again! Why have they left their palace
underground to come and see her? It is sweet of them, it is beautiful!
They sit on her chest, they press close to her face, they kiss her with
their wee lips, they bring comforting thoughts into her heart, they
whisper lovely things into her ears. She has not felt alone from the
very first; but now that the fairies have come she never, never could be
happier than she is now. And then, away from the fairies (who stay close
to her all the time), she lifts her eyes and looks at the stars; and oh,
the stars are so bright! And, somehow, she remembers that God is up
there; and she thinks about white-clad angels who came down once,
straight from the stars, by means of a ladder, to help a good man in a
Bible story; and she really sees the ladder again, and the angels going
up and coming down--going up and coming down--and she gives a cry and
says, 'Oh, take me too! Oh, take me too!' One angel more beautiful than
she could possibly describe comes towards her, and the fairies give a
little cry--for, sweet as they are, they have nothing to do with
angels--and disappear. The angel has his strong arms round her, and he
says, 'Your bed of snow is not so beautiful as where you shall lie in
the land where no trouble can come.' Then she