Page 72 - Adventures in shadow-land

o f the rough stones, and great tears gathered In

her eyes. And as, one by one, they rolled down
her cheeks and fell to the ground, everything

around her seemed to grow vague and dim ; and
at her feet, just where the tear-drops fell, there

came a bed of round green leaves, under whose
shelter bloomed and nodded a multitude of tiny

purple flowers; violets, whose sweet fragrance,
rising, made a misty cloud, through which Eva

caught faint glimpses of a pond, and a house
near it, and then the house seemed to changc

into a cosy parlor. And by the window of this
parlor a lady was sitting sewing, and rocking a

cradle with her foot, and singing to a baby boy
who was kicking and crowing in the cradle; and

then the child heard her mother's voice calling,
softly, ‘*Eva, Eva I” But before these memories

came fully back, Aster came up, and angrily
crushed and trampled the sweet violets under his

feet j and as he did so the cloud and its pictures
disappeared, and Eva forgot them; only she was

very sorry for the dear little flowers that Aster
had killed.

Poor little flowers, which tried to do her good!