t sleep comfortable. I wouldn't
ha' minded a trifle of it, but this was too much of a good thing.
So I got up before sunrise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I
might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come'd down this way!
I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun
was just a rising up behind the Dust-heap as I got in sight of it,
and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes
then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the
sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the Dust-heap, he had
dropped something. You may laugh--I say he dropped something. Well
I can't say what it was, in course--a bit of his-self, I suppose.
It was just like him--a bit on him, I mean--quite as bright--just
the same--only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and
sparkling all on fire upon the Dust-heap. Thinks I--I was a younger
man then by some years than I am now--I'll go and have a nearer look.
Though you be a bit o' the sun, maybe you won't hurt a poor man. So
I walked toward the Dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of
sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the
sun went behind a cloud--and as he went out--like, so the young 'un
he had dropped, went out arter him. And I had to climb up the heap for
nothing, though I had marked the place vere it lay very percizely. But
there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as
had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing 'cept a bit 'o
broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that's
my story. But if ever a man saw anything at all, I saw a bit o' the
sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged
old man of threescore and ten, which was my age at that time."

"Now, Peggy!" cried several voices, "tell us what you saw. Peg saw a
bit o' the moon."

"No," said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; "I'm no moon-raker. Not
a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star the time I speak
on."

"Well--go on, Peggy--go on."

"I don't know as I will," said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous,
compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

"There was no moon, or stars, or comet, in the 'versal heavens, nor
lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter's night
from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea with her and
M