With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist paused,—­turning his head to listen,—­half inclined to the belief that his fancy was tricking him.  But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.

Then he saw her.  Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines—­in the flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows—­she appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew out of the organ-sound of the waters.

To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his easel a little back from the grassy, open spot.  Seated as he was, on a low camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed—­even by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in the woods and hills.  As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the foot of the sheltering bank.  Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered the fruit of Nature’s offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature’s music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native haunts.

The man kept very still.  Presently, when the girl had moved so that he could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his work—­but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.

Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly—­losing itself, again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come.  For a while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture; but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there.  At last, as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head—­and looked straight into her face.

The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled.  When she had ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing quite close.  Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning forward, her basket on her arm.  So interested was she in the painting, that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.

“It is beautiful,” she said, as though in answer to his question.  And no one—­hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke—­could have doubted her sincerity.  “It is so true, so—­so”—­she searched for a word, and smiled in triumph when she found it—­“so right—­so beautifully right.  It—­it makes me feel as—­as I feel when I am at church—­and the organ plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and some one reads those beautiful words, ’The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him’.”