ent and delight. I moved a little to
the right, hoping to see her face, without her seeing me; but the slight
movement caught her ear, and in a second she had sprung aside and turned
toward me. The spell was broken. She was no longer the queen of an
air-castle, decking herself in all the rainbow hues which pleased her eye.
She was a poor beggar child, out in the rain, and a little frightened at
the approach of a stranger. She did not move away, however; but stood
eying me irresolutely, with that pathetic mixture of interrogation and
defiance in her face which is so often seen in the prematurely developed
faces of poverty-stricken children.

"Aren't the colors pretty?" I said. She brightened instantly.

"Yes'm. I'd like a goon av thit blue."

"But you will take cold standing in the wet," said I. "Won't you come
under my umbrella?"

She looked down at her wet dress suddenly, as if it had not occurred to
her before that it was raining. Then she drew first one little foot and
then the other out of the muddy puddle in which she had been standing,
and, moving a little closer to the window, said, "I'm not jist goin' home,
mem. I'd like to stop here a bit."

So I left her. But, after I had gone a few blocks, the impulse seized me
to return by a cross street, and see if she were still there. Tears sprang
to my eyes as I first caught sight of the upright little figure, standing
in the same spot, still pointing with the rhythmic finger to the blues and
reds and yellows, and half chanting under her breath, as before, "I choose
_that_ color." "I choose _that_ color." "I choose _that_ color."

I went quietly on my way, without disturbing her again. But I said in my
heart, "Little Messenger, Interpreter, Teacher! I will remember you all my
life."

Why should days ever be dark, life ever be colorless? There is always sun;
there are always blue and scarlet and yellow and purple. We cannot reach
them, perhaps, but we can see them, if it is only "through a glass," and
"darkly,"--still we can see them. We can "choose" our colors. It rains,
perhaps; and we are standing in the cold. Never mind. If we look earnestly
enough at the brightness which is on the other side of the glass, we shall
forget the wet and not feel the cold. And now and then a passer-by, who
has rolled himself up in furs to keep out the cold, but shivers
nevertheless,--who has money in his purse to buy many colors, if he likes,
but, nevertheless, goes grumbling becau