d, yes, you are right in a way; all Nature tells the same
eternal tale, if our ears were not stopped to its voices," he
answered, with a sigh; indeed, the child's talk had struck a vein of
thought familiar to his own mind, and, what is more, it deeply
interested him; there was a quaint, far-off wisdom in it.

"It is pleasant to-night, is it not, Mr. Fraser?" said the little
maid, "though everything is dying. The things die softly without any
pain this year; last year they were all killed in the rain and wind.
Look at that cloud floating across the moon, is it not beautiful? I
wonder what it is the shadow of; I think all the clouds are shadows of
something up in heaven."

"And when there are no clouds?"

"Oh! then heaven is quite still and happy."

"But heaven is always happy."

"Is it? I don't understand how it can be always happy if _we_ go
there. There must be so many to be sorry for."

Mr. Fraser mused a little; that last remark was difficult to answer.
He looked at the fleecy cloud, and, falling into her humour, said--

"I think your cloud is the shadow of an eagle carrying a lamb to its
little ones."

"And I think," she answered confidently, "that it is the shadow of an
angel carrying a baby home."

Again he was silenced; the idea was infinitely more poetical than his
own.

"This," he reflected, "is a child of a curious mental calibre."

Before he could pursue the thought further, she broke in upon it in
quite a different strain.

"Have you seen Jack and Jill? They _are_ jolly."

"Who are Jack and Jill?"

"Why, my ravens, of course. I got them out of the old tree with a hole
in it at the end of the lake."

"The tree at the end of the lake! Why, the hole where the ravens nest
is fifty feet up. Who got them for you?"

"I got them myself. Sam--you know Sam--was afraid to go up. He said he
should fall, and that the old birds would peck his eyes. So I went by
myself one morning quite early, with a bag tied round my neck, and got
up. It was hard work, and I nearly tumbled once; but I got on the
bough beneath the hole at last. It shook very much; it is so rotten,
you have no idea. There were three little ones in the nest, all with
great mouths. I took two, and left one for the old birds. When I was
nearly down again, the old birds found me out, and flew at me, and
beat my head with their wings, and pecked--oh, they did peck! Look
here," and she showed him a scar on her hand; "that's where they
pecked