Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/228

 *ther, as with carefully shaded light they bent over the little white beds which held their sleeping treasures. "Are you satisfied now, dear Hannah?"

It would have amused a less anxious observer to see how characteristically different the two children were, even in the unconsciousness of sleep—the little, gentle Mary, straight and fair as a lily in her almost breathless repose, with quiet limbs all properly disposed in unconscious grace, a half-formed smile on her calm, sweet face, and her little dimpled hands crossed lightly over her bosom, lay like some saintly fair marble effigy upon a monumental stone, as if sleep had surprised her at her innocent devotions; while the more decided, active Johnny, restless and energetic even in his sleep, with upturned face and eager lips apart, the soft, loose curls brushed back from his moistened brow and flushed cheeks—with graceful limbs tossed about the bed in careless freedom—lay with his little sturdy fists doubled up like a prize-fighter above the disordered bedclothes, as if he had fought to the very last against the approaches of the slumber