Two Prisoners by Thomas Nelson Page — Read

Molly's day had been very dark. It was dark without and within. She had suffered a great deal. She had seen the little girl on the gallery playing with her puppy and running about, and her own life had seemed very wretched. Mrs. O'Meath was drunk and had threatened her with the Poorhouse, and she had not got any breakfast; she was very unhappy.

It seemed to her that she and the bird in the cage outside the window were the most wretched things in the world. She thought of her mother, and wondered if she should go to Heaven if she would know her. Perhaps, she would not want her. She lay back and looked around her little dark room, and then shut her eyes and began to pray very hard. It was not much of a prayer, just a fragment, beginning, "Our Father, who art in Heaven" -- which had somehow stuck in her memory, and which she always used when she wanted anything. Just then she heard a noise outside on the steps. It came pulling up step by step, and Roy trotted in at the open door and came bouncing and twisting over toward the bed. In an instant she had him on the bed, and he was licking her face and walking over her. She heard a noise at the door and was aware that some one was there, and, looking up, she saw standing in the door the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld -- a little girl with brown curls and big brown eyes. She was bareheaded and beautifully dressed, and her eyes were wide open with surprise. In her hand she held a small green bough, with a wonderful red thing on the end. Molly thought she must be a fairy or an angel.