reams.

An hour passed, and still the mystery of sleep enfolded her. A bee
hummed noisily about her head, a catbird sang in a tree near by, but she
was too far away to be disturbed by any sound of earth.

"Ye are not bound!
The soul of things is sweet,
The heart of being is celestial rest--"

All this the sleeper knew. She had broken the chains of habit that
mortals forge for themselves and bind on themselves; in the freedom of
that spring day her soul had tasted the sweetness that lies at the "soul
of things", and now in sleep she had found the "celestial rest" that
lies at "the heart of being."

Was that a human footstep or was it a rabbit rustling the underbrush?
Was it a human voice or the note of a bird? Along the fresh path between
the two roads came a man, walking with a glad, free stride and whistling
softly under his breath. The joy of the season was in his face, and he
was at home in the woods, for when a redbird called to its mate, the man
whistled a reply and smiled to hear the bird's instant response.
Suddenly he caught sight of the sleeping girl at the foot of the tree;
the whistle and the smile died on his lips and he stopped short, amazed
and bewildered. A woman asleep in the forest! Wonder of wonders! The
sunshine flecked her face and her hair, and in the sweet placidity of
sleep he hardly recognized the girl he had often seen in the country
church on Sundays. What was she doing here alone and unprotected?
Surprise and wonder vanished as he realized the situation, and his face
crimsoned like a bashful girl's. For the moment the whole wood seemed
to belong to the sleeper at whom he was gazing, and he felt the
confusion of one who accidentally invades the privacy of a maiden's
room. Here was no fairy princess to be wakened with a kiss, but a
helpless woman who must be guarded as long as she slept, and he was a
knight in homespun appointed to keep the watch. He knew, though no poet
had ever told him, that sleep is "a holy thing." If it had been
possible, he would have silenced the songs of the birds, and he held his
breath as he turned and tiptoed softly away, looking timidly back now
and then to see if she still slept. When he had gone a few rods, he
stepped out of the path and took his place behind the trunk of a tree.
Here he could watch and see that no other intruder passed by, and when
she wakened he would be ready to follow her homeward flight. There were
tasks at home awaiting h