all be some little while away, and I
expect you will have dug some yards. You can dig as far as this. Try,
Evelyn, make up your mind that you will; if you make up your mind,
you will succeed."

Evelyn promised.

"But you won't stay a long time, will you?" she called after the nun.
"Now I know why Sister Mary John wears men's boots." And she stooped
to pin up her skirt.

All the while the sky was clearing, the wind drove the clouds
westward, breaking up the dark masses, scattering, winnowing, letting
the sun through. Delicious was the glow, though it lasted but for a
few minutes--perhaps more delicious because it was so transitory.
Another patch of wind-driven clouds came up, and the world became
cold and grey again. A moment afterwards the clouds passed, the sun
shone out, and the delicious warmth filled mind and body with a
delight that no artificial warmth could; and, to enjoy the glowing of
the sun, Evelyn left her digging, and wandered away through the
garden, stopping now and then to notice the progress of the spring. A
late frost had cut the blossoms of the pear and the cherry; the
half-blown blossom dropped at the touch of the finger, and Evelyn
regretted the frost, thinking of the nets she had made.

"They'll be of very little use this year." And she wondered if the
currant and gooseberry-bushes had escaped; the apples had, for they
were later, unless there was another frost. "And then my nets will be
of no use at all; and, I have worked so hard at them!"

The lilac-bushes were not yet in leaf--only some tiny green shoots.
"We shall not have any lilac this year till the middle of May. Was
there ever such a season?" Larks were everywhere, ascending in short
flights, trilling as they ascended; and Evelyn listened to their
singing, thinking it most curious--quaint cadenzas in which a note
was wanting, like in the bagpipes, a sort of aerial bagpipes. But on
a bare bough a thrush sang, breaking out presently into a little tune
of five notes. "Quite a little tune; one would think the bird had
been taught it." She waited for him to sing it again, but, as if not
wishing to waste his song, being a careful bird, he continued a sort
of recitative; then, thinking his listener had waited long enough for
his little aria, he broke out again. "There it is, five notes--a
distinct little tune." Why should he sing and no other thrush sing
it? There was a robin; but he sang the same little roundelay all the
year.... A little