The Weary Heart lay restlessly on his bed, distracted with the strife of the day. Wearied indeed was he in heart, and wavering in the simple faith which had blessed his childhood. The world was no more beautiful to him, his fellow-man was no more trustworthy, and heaven was no longer regarded as his distant, though native home. One thing only seemed, to his changed heart, the same; it was the ever-varying, ever-constant moon, which shed her broad, fair light as serenely on his aching brow as when he nestled, a happy child, upon his mother's breast.
Soothed by this pure light, the Weary Heart slept at length; and in his sleep, his troubled and toil-worn mind went back--back to the early hours of life--back to the lone old house, so loved in childhood, so seldom thought of now. In this old home all seemed yet unchanged, and he would fain have busied himself in tracing out memories of the past; but a low sweet voice bade him gaze steadfastly on the lozenge panes of the long lattice window, where the sun of the early spring-tide was shining gayly through the mazy branches of the old elm-tree, and bordering its traceries with glimpses of purple and golden light. But gradually, and even as he looked, the sun became brighter and hotter, and as his heat momentarily strengthened, Weary Heart saw the green leaves creep out, one by one, and place themselves daily between the window and the sun, so as to intercept his fiercest rays; until at length, when the sun had attained his greatest power, these leaves were all arranged so as to shade the window, as a bird overshadows her young; and the room was as much refreshed by the cool green light, as it had formerly been gladdened by the spring-tide beams. Then Weary Heart was softened; yet he feared to breathe, lest the dread winter-time should come, when the cool leaves which brought balm to his heart, should fall away from him and die.
Gradually, however, the sun became lower in the heavens, and his heat was less fervid upon the earth. Then the leaves went noiselessly away, in the same order in which they had come. One by one, they crept silently out of sight, like earnest hearts whose mission is fulfilled; and yet so glad were they for the consciousness of the good which they had been given power to do, that when the Weary Heart observed them more closely, he could see how bright a glow of joy decked even their dying moments, and in how frolicsome a dance many of them delighted ere they lay down on the cold earth to die.