Page:On a pincushion.djvu/81

he sang to her; but she did not notice him, but sat watching the Sunbeam sadly. For a moment the Moon’s light was obscured, as the tiny cloud sailed past it; then the little silver ladder fell to earth, broken in two and shrunk away; but the Moon-beam did not heed it.

“It does not matter,” she said, “for I should never have gone back and left you here, now that I have seen you.”

So all night long they sat together in the oak-tree, and the Nightingale sang to them, and the other birds grumbled that he kept them awake. But the two were very happy, though the Sun-beam knew he was growing paler every moment, for he could not live twenty-four hours away from the Sun.

When the dawn began to appear, the Moon-beam shivered and trembled.

“The strong Sun,” she said, “would kill me, but I fear something even worse than the Sun. See how heavy the clouds are! Surely it is going to rain, and rain would kill us both at once. Oh, where can we look for shelter before it comes?”

The Sunbeam.looked up, and saw that the rain was coming.