Stories Jolly, Stories New, Stories Strange and True

Note

It was called the Orange Garden, and in the middle stood a beautiful fountain. The water flowed from a horn held in the hands of a child-figure carved in marble, and fell down with a soft plash into a fluted shell beneath.

In the summer evenings many of the townspeople came and walked in the garden, enjoying the soft air and listening to the murmur of the fountain, whilst their children played round the stone basin and, as they looked up at the marble child, wondered how it felt to be so high up, and to sit so still, so very still, all day! Was his little hand never tired of holding the great horn?

And then, when the twilight fell, and the stars peeped out one by one, the moon shone softly, and the scent of the orange flowers filled the air—was he not very lonely there; was he not afraid?

He never seemed frightened, for a smile dimpled his baby face; and old, old people told their grandchildren that he had always been the same.

Note

Now the Fountain Angel had many friends, and the chief of them all was Herminé, a poor little lame girl, who lived with her grandfather, Bernhardt, in the grey stone cottage just outside the Orange Garden: old Bernhardt was one of the Duke’s gardeners, and Herminé had lived with him ever since she was a baby. She could remember no other relations, and as she could not run about and play with the other children, she had made her only friend, playmate, and confidant of the marble Fountain Angel, and she spent all her spare minutes happily by his side.

One evening, late in the summer, old Bernhardt lay ill in his cottage, and the moon was shining brightly over the Orange Garden before Herminé came through the iron-scrolled gates with the slow tap, tap, of her little crutch-stick, and seated herself wearily on the grass beside the fountain.