Coaly Mathew took Damie to work with him at the kiln in the forest, where talebearers kept coming to Damie to tell him that he had only to begin a lawsuit; they declared that he could not be driven away, for he had not yet been received at any other place, and that this was always a tacit condition when any one gave up his right of settlement.  These people seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from the reflection that the poor orphans had neither time nor money to begin a legal process.

Damie seemed to like the solitude of the forest; it suited him exactly, the fact that one was not obliged to dress and undress there.  And every Sunday afternoon Barefoot experienced great difficulty in getting him to clean himself up a little; then she would sit with him and Coaly Mathew.

Little was said, and Barefoot could not prevent her thoughts from wandering about the world in search of him who had once made her so happy for a whole day, and had lifted her above the earth.  Did he know nothing more about her?  Did he think of her no more?  Could people forget other people with whom they had once been so happy?

It was on a Sunday morning toward the end of May, and everybody was at church.  The day before it had rained, and now a strong, refreshing breeze was blowing over the mountains and valleys, and the sun was shining brightly.  Barefoot had also intended to go to church, but while the bells were ringing she had sat as if spell-bound beneath her window, until it was too late to go.  That was a strange thing for her, and it had never happened before.  But now that it was too late, she determined to stay at home by herself and read her hymn-book.  She rummaged through her drawers, and was surprised to find all sorts of things that belonged to her.  She was sitting on the floor, reading a hymn and humming the tune of it to herself, when something stirred at the window.  She glanced up; a white dove was sitting on the ledge and looking at her.  When the eyes of the dove and of the girl met, the bird flew away.  Barefoot watched it soar out over the fields and alight again.

This incident, which was a very natural one, filled her heart with gladness; and she kept nodding to the mountains in the distance, and to the fields and woods.  The rest of that day she was unusually cheerful.  She could not explain to herself why, but it seemed to her as if a joyous spirit were singing within her, and she knew not whence it came.  And as often as she shook her head, while she leaned against the door-post, wondering at the strange excitement she felt, the feeling did not pass away.

“It must be, it must be that some one has been thinking kindly of me,” she said; “and why should it not be possible that the dove was a silent messenger who came to tell me so?—­Animals, after all, live in the world, where the thoughts of men are flying about, and who knows if they do not quietly carry those thoughts away?”