He took off his hat, and looked up into the tree. "Heaven's blessings on you, birdy!" said he. "It's the very way I'd have said it myself; but I didn't know how." The mocking-bird flew on; and Teddy followed, hoping for a repetition of the strain: but the capricious little songster only twittered promises of a coming happiness greater than any pleasure his best efforts could afford, and darted away to the recesses of the forest, where was in progress an Art-Union matin‚e of such music as all the wealth of all our cities cannot buy for us. Teddy followed for a while; and then, fearing that he should be lost in the trackless wood, turned his back upon the rising sun, and walked, as be supposed, in the direction of the house, his eyes upon the ground, his mind strangely busy with thoughts and memories of the life he had left so far behind, that, in the press and hurry of his present career, it sometimes seemed hardly to belong to him. "God and my lady have been very good to me," thought the boy; "but I never'll be as happy again as when the little sister put her arms about my neck, and called me her dear Teddy, and kissed me with her own sweet mouth that maybe is dust and ashes now. No: I never'll be happy that way again." He raised his eyes as he spoke, and started back, pale and trembling, fain to lean against the nearest tree for support under the great shock. Not fifty feet from him, and bathed in the early sunlight that came sifting through the trees to greet her, stood a child, dressed in a white robe, her sunny hair crowned with flowers, her little hand holding sceptre-wise a long stalk with snow-white bells drooping from its under edge. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, and her slender feet gleamed white from the bed of moss that almost buried them. Still as a little statue, or a celestial vision printing itself in one never-to-be-forgotten moment upon the heart of the beholder, she stood looking at him; and Teddy dropped upon his knees, gasping,-- "It's out of glory you've come to comfort me, darling! and God ever bless you for the same!" The child looked at him with her starry eyes, and slowly smiled. "I knew you sometime," said she. "Was it in heaven ?" "No: it's better than ever I'll be, you know, in heaven, little sister. Are you happy there, mavourneen?" asked Teddy timidly. "Oh! I haven't gone to heaven yet. I never could find the way," said the child, with a troubled expression suddenly clouding her sweet face; and then she added musingly,-- "I thought I'd get there through the river last night; but I tumbled off the log, and only got wet: and Dora said I was naughty; and so I had to go to bed, and not have some supper, only"-- "What's that, then!" shouted Teddy, springing to his feet, and holding out his hands toward her, though not yet daring to approach. " It's not the spirit of the little sister you are, but a live child?"