[Illustration: "Nestle down close, fold your hands, and shut your dear
eyes!"]
"Ting-long! Ting-a-long! Ting-long!" and off is the train again. And
swifter and swifter it speedeth,--oh, I am sure no other train
speedeth half so swiftly! The sights my dear one sees! I cannot tell
of them--one must see those beauteous sights to know how wonderful
they are!
"Shug-chug! Shug-chug! Shug-chug!"
On and on and on the locomotive proudly whirleth the train.
"Ting-long! Ting-a-long! Ting-long!"
The bell calleth anon, but fainter and evermore fainter; and fainter
and fainter groweth that other calling--"Toot! Toot! Toot!"--till
finally I know that in that Shut-Eye Town afar my dear one dreameth
the dreams of Balow.
This was the bedtime tale which I was wont to tell our little Mistress
Merciless, and at its end I looked upon her face to see it calm and
beautiful in sleep.
Then was I wont to kneel beside her little bed and fold my two
hands,--thus,--and let my heart call to the host invisible: "O
guardian angels of this little child, hold her in thy keeping from all
the perils of darkness and the night! O sovereign Shepherd, cherish
Thy little lamb and mine, and, Holy Mother, fold her to thy bosom and
thy love! But give her back to me,--when morning cometh, restore ye
unto me my little one!"
But once she came not back. She had spoken much of Master Sweetheart
and of that land of Ever-Plaisance whither he had gone. And she was
not afeard to make the journey alone; so once upon a time when our
little Mistress Merciless bade us good-by, and went away forever, we
knew that it were better so; for she was lonely here, and without her
that far-distant country whither she journeyed were not content.
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