As she enjoyed the most perfect freedom in all her movements, she snatched an early and hurried breakfast Sunday morning, told her husband that she was going to the woods for wild flowers, and set forth upon an errand pregnant with destiny.

With an instinct like that of a wild creature she made her way swiftly towards the great forest which lay at a little distance from the outskirts of the village.

Her ignorance, her inexperience, her sadness and her beauty would have stirred the hardest heart to compassion.  Arrived at the point where she was to confront the great spiritual problems of existence, she might almost as well have been the first woman who had ever done so, for she knew nothing of the experiences of others who had encountered them, and she had scarcely heard an echo of the great life-truths which seers have been ages in discovering.  She had to sound her way across the perilous sea of thought without any other chart than the faded parchment of the gypsy, and those few incomprehensible words which she had heard from the lips of the young Quaker.

It is good for us that upon this vast and unknown sea of life, God’s winds and waves are wiser and stronger than the pilots, and often bring our frail crafts into havens which we never sought!  Perhaps the act which Pepeeta was about to perform had more ethical and spiritual value than the casual observer would suppose, because of the perfect sincerity with which she undertook its performance.  No priestess ever entered an oracle, no vestal virgin a temple, nor saint a shrine with more reverence than she felt, as she passed into the silence of this primeval forest.

Neither David nor Pepeeta knew anything of each other’s movements, but they started upon their different errands at almost the same moment and were pursuing parallel courses with only a low ridge of hills between them.  Each was following the brightest light that had shone upon the pathway of life.  Both were absorbed with the highest thoughts of which they were capable.  As invisible planets deflect the stars from their orbits, these two were imperceptibly diverting each other from the way of duty.  The experiences of this beautiful morning were to color the lives of both forever.

As soon as Pepeeta had escaped from the immediate environments of the village, she gave herself wholly to the task of gathering those ingredients which were to constitute the mixture she planned to offer to her god.  She first secured a cricket, a lizard and a frog, and then the herbs and flowers which were to be mingled with them.  Thrusting them all into a little kettle which swung on her arm, she surrendered herself to the silent and mysterious influences of the forest.  At the edge of the primeval wilderness a solemn hush stole over her.  She entered its precincts as if it were a temple and she a worshiper with a votive offering.  Threading her way through the winding aisles of the great cathedral, she was