The ark is in sight; but the poor bird is weary from her flight, and she would even now willingly fold her wings and sink down amid the waters, for she is full of shame, and fear, and sorrow. Ah! will her father "put forth his hand and take her in, and pull her in unto him into the ark," with the glory of her whiteness defiled, her plumage ruffled and drooping? Ah! will her mother draw her again to nestle within her bosom, when she sees the dark stain upon her breast, once so pure and spotless? The poor girl wept as she thought these things--at first wild and bitterly, but at length her sorrow became gentler, and her soul more calm, for her heavy heart was relieved by the tears that seemed to have gushed straight up from it, as the dark clouds are lightened when the rain pours from them. And so she sobbed and mused in the cold, dreary night, till her thoughts wandered and her vision grew dim, and she sank down in slumber--a slumber like that of childhood, sweet and deep. And she dreamed that angels, pure and white, stood around: and, oh! strange and charming, they looked not on her as the unfallen ones of the world--the pure and the sinless in their own sight--looked upon her through the weary days of her humiliation--scornfully, loathingly, pitilessly; but their sweet eyes were bent upon her full of ruth, and gentleness, and love; and tears like dew-pearls fell from those mild and lustrous orbs upon her brow and bosom, as those beautiful beings hung over her, and those tears calmed her poor wild brain, and each, where it fell upon her bosom, washed away a stain. Then the angels took the little one from her breast, and spread their wings as if for flight; but she put forth her arms to regain her child, and one of the bright beings repressed her gently, and said, "It may not be--the babe goes with us." Then said she to the angel, "Suffer me also to go with my child, that I may be with it and tend it ever." But the angel said, in a voice of sweet and solemn earnestness, "Not yet--not yet. Thou mayest not come with us now, but in a little while shalt thou rejoin us, and this our little sister."