and dull sometimes. They say--mind, I say they say--these other
angels take them out one by one, and pass each round as we do,
and breathe over it, and rub it with their white hands, which are
softer than ours, because they don't do any pick-and-spade work,
and smile at it, and put it in again: and that is what keeps them from
growing dark."

"How jolly!" thought Diamond. "I should like to see them at their
work too.--When do you go to sleep?" he asked the captain.

"When we grow sleepy," answered the captain. "They do say--but mind
I say they say--that it is when those others--what do you call them?
I don't know if that is their name; I am only guessing that may be
the sort you mean--when they are on their rounds and come near any
troop of us we fall asleep. They live on the west side of the hill.
None of us have ever been to the top of it yet."

Even as he spoke, he dropped his spade. He tumbled down beside it,
and lay fast asleep. One after the other each of the troop dropped
his pickaxe or shovel from his listless hands, and lay fast asleep
by his work.

"Ah!" thought Diamond to himself, with delight, "now the girl-angels
are coming, and I, not being an angel, shall not fall asleep
like the rest, and I shall see the girl-angels."

But the same moment he felt himself growing sleepy. He struggled
hard with the invading power. He put up his fingers to his eyelids
and pulled them open. But it was of no use. He thought he saw
a glimmer of pale rosy light far up the green hill, and ceased