WHAT THE MOON SAW. 371

troop of negroes are returning from a market in the interior of
the land; the women, with copper buttons in their black train,
and decked out in clothes dyed with indigo, drive the heavily-
laden oxen, on whose backs slumber the naked black children.
A negro leads a young lion which he has bought by a string.
They approach the caravan; the young merchant sits pensive
and motionless, thinking of his beautiful wife, dreaming, in the
land of the blacks, of his white fragrant lily beyond the desert.
He raises his head, and——”

But at this moment a cloud passed before the Moon, and then
another. I heard nothing more from him this evening.

TWENTY-FIRST EVENING.

“T looked down on Tyrol,” said the Moon, “and my beams
caused the dark pines to throw long shadows upon the rocks.
I looked at the pictures of St. Christopher carrying the Infant
Jesus that are painted there upon the walls of the houses, colossal
figures reaching from the ground to the roof. St. Florian was
represented pouring water on the burning house, and the Lord
hung bleeding on the great cross by the way-side. To the
present generation these are old pictures, but I saw when they
were put up, and marked how one followed the other. On the
brow of the mountain yonder is perched, like a swallow’s nest, a
lonely convent of nuns. Two of the sisters stood up in the tower
tolling the bell; they were both young, and therefore their glances
flew over the mountain out into the world. A travelling coach
passed by below, the postillion wound his horn, and the poor
nuns looked after the carriage for a moment with a mournful
glance, and a tear gleamed in the eyes of the younger one. And
the horn sounded faintly and more faint, and the convent bell
drowned its expiring echoes.”

TWENTY-SECOND EVENING.

“ T sawa little girl weeping,” said the Moon: “she was weeping
over the depravity of the world. She had received a most beau-
tiful doll as a present. Oh, that was a glorious doll, so fair and
delicate! She did not seem created for the sorrows of this world.
But the brothers of the little girl, those great naughty boys, had
set the doll high up in the branches of a tree, and had run away.

“ The little girl could not reach up to the doll, and could not
help her down, and that is why she was crying. The doll must
certainly have been crying too, for she stretched out her arms
among the green branches, and looked quite mournful. Yes,
these are the troubles of life of which the little girl had often
heard tell. Alas, poor doll! it began to grow dark already; and

suppose night were to come on completely! Was she to be leit
24—2,