THE MOON'S HISTORIES. CHAPTER I. THE LONE WOMAN'S ACCOUNT OF HERSELF, AND OF A VISIT WHICH SHE RECEIVED. A WIDOWED woman am I, and I have two little daughters; they are very young, not three years old. My home was in a sweet Danish village, but being, when I became a widow, very poor, I journeyed away from it to seek work in a great town, the great town of Hamburgh, where there are rich people. My neighbours thought that wealthy citizens could give me work, and that so I could get bread for myself and my children; they kissed me and wrung my hands when they advised me to go, and one and another of them brought me warm clothes for my B babes, and a little tea and dried meat for the way. When I set forth they wept, and I wept also. We took up our abode-my babes and I-in the upper part of a house in a narrow street, looking out on the roofs of the city. The first days that I was here I was sad and lonely; I had left all my friends behind; they had been my husband's friends; I could not look upon one face that I knew, excepting my babes. Instead of the woods, and fields, and streams of old Denmark, I saw only grey chimneys and smoky roofs; my little ones cried, for I had not food enough to give them; no voice that I knew and loved, spoke to me, or wished me success, and I wondered sorrowfully whether I should indeed earn bread for myself and my children in rich Hamburgh. The clergyman of my native village wrote to a merchant's family in the town to represent my case, and owing to this kind act of his, and to the good care of Providence, I soon did get work; my work brought me money enough to provide food, and all else that we urgently needed, for myself and my babes. I was very thankful for this, but still I had no friends; I never saw my employers; I had no companions with whom to speak; therefore I was sad. One evening I stood at my window, a tear was in my eye; I opened the casement and looked out. Ah! how I was gladdened. I saw an old friend come after me from home. Who should it be? It was the Moon, bright and clear, just as I had seen her peering over our Danish woods, glittering on the glow-worm on the bank, and casting her sheen on the objects of furniture in our small cottage, just as I had seen her too in the days of my infancy, when I first remember my mother's sweet voice directing me up to her beautiful disk, and stroking my head with pleasure when she saw my pleased wonder. So I pointed her out to my two little daughters, and she shone brightly upon us, whilst they laughed with delight. She stayed with us a little time, and promised me every night that she was out, when the clouds were not too thick, that she would peep in upon me; and she has kept her word. Each time she comes, she relates to me one history or another of something that she has seen, perhaps the same night, perhaps a thousand years ago. "Write down what I tell you," she said to me on her first visit. "If you do so, you will have some interesting stories, and all of them true. Few things are hidden from me; I understand the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which men can but guess about now, for I was by when they were written. I looked upon the rushing flood, as it tore its wild way upon the earth. My mild eye rested upon Noah in his ark. I beheld Romulus with his outlaw band, as they laid the first stones of Rome; I followed Nimrod, the mighty hunter, when the world was still young; I was there when the Jews sat by Euphrates' stream, hung their harps upon the willows, and mourned their captivity. I have been present at the consecration of Apis in Egypt. I have taught painters, and whispered my inspirations to poets. I looked upon Milton, though he could not see me, and he felt my beauty; often have I |