CHAPTER XXV.
THE CHILD AT PLAY.
"When the long day is past, the steps turn homeward."
Once a child played on the sea-shore. The waves sang and the sand
shone and the pebbles glistened. There was light everywhere; light
from the blue sky, and from the moving water, and from the gleaming
pebbles.
The little one, in its happiness, sang with the murmuring sea and
played with the stones and the shells that lay about. Joy was
everywhere and the child was filled with it.
But the day passed. And the little one grieved in its heart to leave
the beautiful place. Delight was there and many rare things that one
could play with and enjoy.
The child could not leave them all. Its heart ached to think of them
lying there alone by the sea. And it thought:
"I will take the pebbles and the shells with me and I will try to
remember the sunlight and the song of the sea."
So it began to fill its little hands. But it saw that after as many as
possible were gathered together there were yet myriads left. And it
had to leave them.
Tired and with a sore heart it trudged homeward, its hands filled to
overflowing with the pebbles that shone in the sun on the sea-shore.
Now, however, they seemed dull. And because of this, the child did not
seem to regret it so much if now and then one fell. "There are still
some left in my hands," it thought.
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