A delicate child, pale and prematurely wise, was complaining, on a hot morning, that some poor dewdrops had been too hastily snatched away, and not allowed to glitter on the flowers like other happier dewdrops, which live through the whole night, and sparkle in the moonlight and through the morning, onwards to noonday.
"The sun," said the child, "has chased them away with his heat, or swallowed them up in his wrath.
Soon after came rain and a rainbow, whereupon his father pointed upwards.
" See," said he, "there stand the dewdrops, gloriously reset, glittering jewelry in the heavens; and the clownish foot tramples them no more. By this, my child, thou art taught that what withers on earth blooms again in heaven."
Thus the father spoke, and knew not that he spoke prefiguring words; for soon after, the delicate child, with the morning brightness of his early wisdom, was exhaled, like a dewdrop, into heaven.
