Young Herbert, Florence’s eldest, was a great talker, and as they wandered through the woods, naught scarce could be heard, but his voice in exclamation, questioning, or surprise, as each turn and winding revealed some beauty new to his admiring eyes.

“I think I shall have to relate to you the fable of Echo and Narcissus,” said Dawn, as he was contending for the last word with his sister.

“What is that? tell me right away, won’t you?” he said impatiently, seizing her hand and looking eagerly into her face.

“Not just now, but after we have gathered more mosses, and had our luncheon, I will tell you all about the beautiful nymph.”

“Nymph, nymph! what was that?  Was it alive?  Could it see us?” These and other questions followed, till Dawn found it quite hard to longer put him off.

“If you are patient and good to your sister, I will tell you all about the nymph.  Now go and take good care of her, while I go on farther, where Miss Weston is sketching those rocks.”

“I will be good, but don’t forget the story, Auntie, when you come back.  Are there any nymphs here?”

“Perhaps there may be.  I think there is one who resembles them very much,” and she kissed his young, happy face, turned so eagerly up to her own.  Leaving him to amuse himself as best he might, Dawn approached Edith and seated herself beside a bed of deep green moss, and watched, with intense interest, the growing picture for a long time; then her mind became abstracted and cloudy.  She was no longer in the green woods, amid the fern and wild flowers, but away, far away on life’s great highway, where the dust, rising at every step, blinded her eyes.

Thus semi-entranced, Dawn sat unconscious of the presence of her friend, and everything earthly around her, until the spell was broken, and her attention was attracted by a sheet of note paper, which fluttered at her feet.  Almost involuntarily she picked it up, and her gaze was fastened upon the writing with which it was covered.

  “’Tis love which mostly destinates our life. 
  What makes the world in after life I know not,
  For our horizon alters as we age;
  Power only can make up for the lack of love—­
  Power of some sort.  The mind at one time grows
  So fast, it fails; and then its stretch is more
  Than its strength; but, as it opes, love fills it up,
  Like to the stamen in the flower of life,
  Till for the time we well-nigh grow all love;
  And soon we feel the want of one kind heart
  To love what’s well, and to forgive what’s ill
  In us—­”

Then followed these lines, written with a trembling hand, some of the words being almost illegible: