To
this sealed fountain of light the little maiden was creeping through
the dark house, with one of her _dips_ in her hand--the pitcher with
which she was about to draw from the fountain.
And a pretty study she would have made for any child-loving artist,
when, with her face close to the grate, her mouth puckered up to do
duty as the nozzle of a pair of bellows, one hand holding a twisted
piece of paper between the bars, and the other buttressing the whole
position from the floor, she blew at the live but reluctant fire, a
glow spreading at each breath over her face, and then fading as the
breath ceased, till at last the paper caught, and lighting it up from
without with flame, and from within with the shine of success, made the
lovely child-countenance like the face of one that has found the truth
after the search of weary days.
Thus she lighted her candle, and again with careful steps she made her
way to her own room. Setting the candle in a hole in the floor, left by
the departure of a resinous knot, she opened her box, in which lay the
few books her aunt had thrown into it when she left her old home. She
had not yet learned to care much about books; but one of these had now
become precious in her eyes, because she knew it contained poems that
her father had been fond of reading.
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