: Little Meg's Children by Stretton Hesba Copping Harold Illustrator - Christian life Juvenile fiction; Siblings Juvenile fiction; England Juvenile fiction; London (England) Juvenile fiction; Poverty Juvenile fiction

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d frock; but the baby set up a pitiful little wail, and she put aside her own grief to soothe it.

'Hush! hush!' sang Meg, getting up, and walking with baby about the room. 'Hush, hush, my baby dear! By-by, my baby, by-by!'

Meg's sorrowful voice sank into a low, soft, sleepy tone, and presently the baby fell fast asleep, when she laid it upon Robin's little mattress, and covered it up gently with an old shawl. Robin was standing at the foot of the bed, gazing at his mother with wide-open, tearless eyes; and little Meg softly drew the sheet again over the pale and rigid face.

'Robbie,' she said, 'let's sit in the window a bit.'

They had to climb up to the narrow window-sill by a broken chair which stood under it; but when they were there, and Meg had her arm round Robin, to hold him safe, they could see down into Angel Court, and into the street beyond, with its swarms of busy and squalid people. Upon the stone pavement far below them a number of children of every age and size, but all ill-clothed and ill-fed, were crawling about, in and out of the houses, and their cries and shrieks came up to them in their lofty seat; but of late their mother had not let them run out to play in the streets, and they were mostly strangers to them except by sight. Now and then Meg and Robin cast a glance inwards at the quiet and still form of their mother, lying as if silently watching them with her half-closed eyes, and when they spoke to one another they spoke in whispers.

'Mother is going to live with the angels,' said Meg.

'What are angels?' asked Robin, his glittering black eyes glancing at the bed where she lay in her deep sleep.

'Oh, I'm not quite sure,' answered Meg. 'Only they're beautiful people, who are always white and clean, and shining, like that big white cloud up in the sky. They live somewhere up in the sky, where it's always sunny, and bright, and blue.'

'How 'll mother get up there?' inquired Robin.

'Well, I suppose,' replied Meg, after some reflection, 'after they've put her in the ground, the angels 'll come and take her away. I read once of a poor beggar, oh such a poor beggar! full of sores, and he died, and the angels carried him away somewhere. I thought, may be, they'd come for mother in the night; but I suppose they let people be buried first now, and fetch 'em away after.'

'I should like to see some angels,' said Robin.

They were silent again after that, looking down upon the quarrelling children, and the drunken men and women staggering about the yard below. Now and then a sharper scream rang through the court, as some angry mother darted out to cuff one or another of the brawling groups, or to yell some shrill reproach at the drunken men. No sound came to the ears of the listening children except the din and jarring tumult of the crowded city; but they could see the white clouds floating slowly across the sky over their heads, which seemed to little Meg like the wings of the waiting angels, hovering over the place where her mother lay dead.

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