ether by our
cottage hearth. We had no desire to talk, even if our tears would have
permitted us. As we thus sat in mournful stillness, gazing into the
fire, all at once we heard something without,--a slight rustling at the
door. The door flew open, and we saw a little girl, three or four years
old, and more beautiful than I can say, standing on the threshold,
richly dressed, and smiling upon us. We were struck dumb with
astonishment, and I knew not for a time whether the tiny form were a
real human being, or a mere mockery of enchantment. But I soon perceived
water dripping from her golden hair and rich garments, and that the
pretty child had been lying in the water, and stood in immediate need of
our help.

"'Wife,' said I, 'no one has been able to save our child for us; but let
us do for others what would have made us so blessed could any one have
done it for us.'

"We undressed the little thing, put her to bed, and gave her something
to drink; at all this she spoke not a word, but only turned her eyes
upon us--eyes blue and bright as sea or sky--and continued looking at us
with a smile.

"Next morning we had no reason to fear that she had received any other
harm than her wetting, and I now asked her about her parents, and how
she could have come to us. But the account she gave was both confused
and incredible. She must surely have been born far from here, not only
because I have been unable for these fifteen years to learn anything
of her birth, but because she then said, and at times continues to say,
many things of so very singular a nature, that we neither of us know,
after all, whether she may not have dropped among us from the moon; for
her talk runs upon golden castles, crystal domes, and Heaven knows what
extravagances beside. What, however, she related with most distinctness
was this: that while she was once taking a sail with her mother on the
great lake, she fell out of the boat into the water; and that when she
first recovered her senses, she was here under our trees, where the gay
scenes of the shore filled her with delight.

"We now had another care weighing upon our minds, and one that caused us
no small perplexity and uneasiness. We of course very soon determined
to keep and bring up the child we had found, in place of our own darling
that had been drowned; but who could tell us whether she had been
baptized or not? She herself could give us no light on the subject. When
we asked her the question