tenement shut, but the light from within shining through
the translucent walls.

"Some one is here, who goes and comes as goes and comes none else. Her
step is light, her touch soft, her voice gentle and low. I love to have
her near me. Where she is can come no evil thing. Wild dreams stand at
the door, waiting for her to go away, when they come slipping in to
dance around me, to laugh at me, to point the mocking finger at
me--sometimes, to scowl and frown upon me. They are after Sprigg, to vex
and frighten him, and think that I am he. But the moment she comes back,
out they go skipping by another door--make all the haste they can to get
away. They are afraid of her, as is every evil thing, because she is as
God, in the beginning, made her--all love and truth.

"Sometimes she comes, bringing with her the pleasant smell of the
woods--the fresh, green, beautiful woods I love so much. She seems to
bring with her the sky, too, so sunny her presence makes all around me;
and once more I am happy--so full of rest and sleep. That smell of the
woods--it never comes, but I feel as if Meg of the Hills must be near,
with her crown of crimson flowers; so wonderful--it is bliss to see
their beauty, life to breathe their sweetness. Surely she who goes and
comes must have found these flowers and brought them to me! Else I had
never been here where I am, this what I am. I think she must be near me
now. I will see."

So saying, and before he had fairly reopened his eyes, our Manitou
butterfly, now nearly ready to spurn the chrysalis, raised himself again
to his elbow and took another dreamy survey of the room. His eyes,
however, seemed to find no object to rest on, until they met a pair as
dreamy as themselves--the innocent, blue ones, there at the foot of his
bed, through which a soul was looking so directly into his own that he
could no longer but be cognizant of a fellow creature's presence.

"Yes, there she is. But she looks like Bertha, and Bertha is not a
little angel, like the one who goes and comes. Though, if she is not, it
must be because the good angels have not yet taken her to themselves;
for, now that I see her better, she looks enough like an angel to be the
one who goes and comes. Can it be that Meg of the Hills has sent Bertha
to me with these flowers, but for which--the life that is in them--I
must have died. Yes, that's the reason why; at least, I think it is.

"But, who are these?" Beginning at last to have some d