nother, each with
a pickaxe on his shoulder and a spade in his hand. As soon as they were
gathered, the captain led them in a straight line to another part of the
hill. Diamond rose and followed.

"Here is where we begin our lesson for to-night," he said. "Scatter and
dig."

There was no more fun. Each went by himself, walking slowly with bent
shoulders and his eyes fixed on the ground. Every now and then one would
stop, kneel down, and look intently, feeling with his hands and parting
the grass. One would get up and walk on again, another spring to his
feet, catch eagerly at his pickaxe and strike it into the ground once
and again, then throw it aside, snatch up his spade, and commence
digging at the loosened earth. Now one would sorrowfully shovel the
earth into the hole again, trample it down with his little bare white
feet, and walk on. But another would give a joyful shout, and after
much tugging and loosening would draw from the hole a lump as big as his
head, or no bigger than his fist; when the under side of it would pour
such a blaze of golden or bluish light into Diamond's eyes that he was
quite dazzled. Gold and blue were the commoner colours: the jubilation
was greater over red or green or purple. And every time a star was
dug up all the little angels dropped their tools and crowded about it,
shouting and dancing and fluttering their wing-buds.

When they had examined it well, they would kneel down one after the
other and peep through the hole; but they always stood back to give
Diamond the first look. All that diamond could report, however, was,
that through the star-holes he saw a great many things and places and
people he knew quite well, only somehow they were different--there was
something marvellous about them--he could not tell what. Every time he
rose from looking through a star-hole, he felt as if his heart would
break for, joy; and he said that if he had not cried, he did not know
what would have become of him.

As soon as all had looked, the star was carefully fitted in again, a
little mould was strewn over it, and the rest of the heap left as a sign
that the star had been discovered.

At length one dug up a small star of a most lovely colour--a colour
Diamond had never seen before. The moment the angel saw what it was,
instead of showing it about, he handed it to one of his neighbours, and
seated himself on the edge of the hole, saying:

"This will do for me. Good-bye. I'm off."

They cr