378 WHAT THE MOON SAW.

properly. Here was a capital playmate they had found! and
they began marching—one, two; one, two.

‘* Suddenly some one came to the door, which opened, and the
mother of the children appeared. You should have seen her in
her dumb terror, with her face as white as chalk, her mouth half
open, and her eyes fixed in a horrified stare. But the youngest
boy nodded to her in great glee, and culled out in his infantile
prattle, ‘We’re playing at soldiers.’ And then the bear-leader
came running up.”

THIRTY-FIRST EVENING.

The wind blew stormy and cold, the clouds flew hurriedly past ;
only for a moment now and then did the Moon become visible.
He said, “I looked down from the silent sky upon the driving
clouds, and saw the great shadows chasing each other across the
earth. I Jooked upon a prison. A closed carriage stood before
it: a prisoner was to be carried away. My rays pierced through
the grated window towards the wall : the prisoner was scratching
a few lines upon it, as a parting token ; but he did not write words,
but a melody, the outpouring of his heart. The door was opened,
and he was led forth, and fixed his eyes upon my round disc.
Clouds passed between us, as if he were not to see my face, nor I
his. He stepped into the carriage, the door was closed, the whip
cracked, and the horses galloped off into the thick forest, whither
my rays were not able to follow him; but as I glanced through
the grated window, my rays glided over the notes, his last fare-
well engraved on the prison wall—where words fail, sounds can
often speak. My rays could only light up isolated notes, so the
greater part of what was written there will ever remain dark to
me. Was it the death-hymn he wrote there? Were these the
glad notes of joy? Did he drive away to meet his death, or
hasten to the embraces of his beloved? The rays of the Moon
do not read all that is written by mortals.”

THIRTY-SECOND EVENING,

“T love the children,” said the Moon, “especially the quite little
ones—they are so droll. Sometimes I peep into the room, between
the curtain and the window-frame, when they are not thinking of
me. It gives me pleasure to see them dressing and undressing.
First, the little round naked shoulder comes creeping out of the
frock, then the arm; or I see how the stocking is drawn off, and
a plump little white leg makes its appearance, and a little white
foot that is fit to be kissed, and I kiss it too.

“ But about what I was going to tell you. This evening I looked
through a window, before which no curtain was drawn, for nobody
lives opposite, I saw a whole troop of little ones, all of one family,