Stories Jolly, Stories New, Stories Strange and True

Epigraph

“He can never change,” they said; “he is like one of the little angels.” So the children called him the “Fountain Angel.”

Epigraph

“I must wait here till I am rested, and then I shall creep in so that I do not wake poor grandfather,” she said to herself; but somehow the air was so warm, and she had been working so hard all day, that she fell asleep—a little round ball of blue homespun—with her head against a cold marble pillow.

It must have been many hours later that the child awoke with a start, wondering where she was, and why her bed had suddenly become so hard.

It was bright moonlight. She rubbed her eyes, jumped up with the help of her crutch-stick, and walked slowly round the fountain.

The water splashed in the moonbeams, the shell and the rocks that supported it shone in the soft light—but the Fountain Angel was gone!

Herminé stood with her eyes growing round with astonishment. Gone! Had someone stolen him whilst she was asleep? Had the earth opened and swallowed him up? What, what had become of him?

“Are you looking for me, little friend?” said a child voice at her elbow.

She turned quickly, and there in the path stood the missing Fountain Angel.

Note

He carried a watering-can in his little hand, and his face was so sweet and child-like that Herminé quite forgot to be frightened, and found herself sitting down by his side on one of the white benches by the orange trees before she realized what she was doing.