When they had all flown out of the window or into distant parts of the room, he bent over the cradle and delighted himself with gazing at the sleeping infant.

It was, indeed, a very pretty sight.

The little personage in the cradle slumbered peacefully, with its waxen hands under its chin, looking as full of blissful quiet as if angels were singing lullabies in its ear.

Indeed, it must have been dreaming about heaven; for, while Ben stooped over the cradle, the little baby smiled.
"How beautiful she looks!" said Ben to himself.

"What a pity it is that such a pretty smile should not last forever!" Now Ben, at this period of his life, had never heard of that wonderful art by which a look, that appears and vanishes in a moment, may be made to last for hundreds of years.