WHO KISSED AWAY THE TEAR?

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3511, 9 October 1882, Page 4

WHO KISSED AWAY THE TEAR?

(From the Detroit Free Press ) Is anything stranger than the human heart ? Nature sends a frail, green vine creeping across the earth to reach a grim wall and cover its ugliness—to reach a dead branch and cover it with life. We bless Nature as we see these things, and yet -we do not realise that human hearts aro ever doing the same. One day, months ago, a rosy-faced child looking from a window saw a queer old man go limping past. It tapped on the pane, and the old man looked up. The sight of that sweet face opened his old heart, and he wont on his way feeling richer than for many a month past. He was the grim wall • the child was the green vine. He passed again, and again the child was at the -window, and for days and weeks they never missed seeing each other. At each meeting the vine crept nearer to the wall—the wall appeared less grim and forbidding. One day the "wall" laid aside his old hat for a better one. Another day he had a new coat. Again he was clean shaved, and tho "vine" scarcely recognised him. No one "knew tbe old man, but all knew that he was feeling the influence of the vine. A week ago as the old man passed lie missed the face at the window. Was he too early or too lato ? He lingered and looked and seemed lost. It was the same next day, but a kind heart pitied him, and sent out word that the child was sick. Tbe green vine had reached the wall only to be blighted. Two days moro and there was crape on the door. The child was dead. It had fallen asleep in death without a struggle, knowing nothing of the great hereafter, but having no fear. On the pale cheek was a tear—a single tear wliich glistened , like a diamond. No band dared to wipe that tear away. It

seemed to tie between the present and the past —tho living and the dead. " Please can I see the —the child ?" It was tho old man—tho grim wall —who knocked timidly at the door and spoke thus. They knew him by sight, and they led him into the room where the vine lay dead, He stood over the coffin for a moment, lips quivering and eyes full of tears, and then he bent over and kissed the face which would watch for him no more. When he had gone they looked for the tear. He had kissed it away! Old and poor and unknown, he had reaped a treasure such as all the millions of tho world could not buy.