The brilliant-winged
butterflies were the angels of the flowers--the gales that fanned her
cheeks the invisible angels of the trees. If Helen had lived in a world
all of sunshine, she would have been the happiest being in the world.
Moonlight, too, she loved--it seemed like a dream of the sun. But it was
only in the presence of others she loved it. She feared to be alone in
it--it was so still and holy, and then it made such deep shadows where
it did not shine! Yes! Helen would have been happy in a world of
sunshine--but we are born for the shadow as well as the sunbeam, and
they who cannot walk unfearing through the gloom, as well as the
brightness, are ill-fitted for the pilgrimage of life.

Childhood is naturally prone to superstition and fear. The intensity of
suffering it endures from these sources is beyond description.

We remember, when a child, with what chillness of awe we used to listen
to the wind sighing through the long branches of the elm trees, as they
trailed against the window panes, for nursery legends had associated the
sound with the moaning of ghosts, and the flapping of invisible wings.
We remember having strange, indescribable dreams, when the mystery of
our young existence seemed to press down upon us with the weight of
iron, and fill us with nameless horror. When a something seemed swelling
and expanding and rolling in our souls, like an immense, fiery globe
_within us_, and yet we were carried around with it, and we felt it must
forever be rolling and enlarging, and we must forever be rolling along
with it. We remember having this dream night after night, and when we
awakened, the first thought was _eternity_, and we thought if we went on
dreaming, we should find out what eternity meant. We were afraid to tell
the dream, from a vague fear that it was wrong, that it might be
thought we were trying to pierce into the mystery of God, and it was
wicked in a child thus to do.

Helen used to say, whenever she fell asleep in the day-time under a
green tree, or on the shady bank of a stream, as she often did, that she
had the brightest, most beautiful dreams--and she wished it was the
_fashion_ for people to sleep by day instead of night.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly Mrs. Gleason's strength wasted away. She
still kept her place at the family board, and continued her labors of
love, but the short, dry, hacking cough assumed a more hollow, deeper
sound, and every day the red spot on her cheek grew b