almost the whole day, but I waited
and did not doubt; I said, "She is busy, or she is gone on a journey,
but she will come." And it was so: she always did. At night she would
not come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there
was a moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is
younger than I am; she was born after I was. Many and many are the
visits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is
hard--and it is mainly that.

TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I
purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and
come. But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all
about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,
those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and
preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands
and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course;
then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for
flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and
thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he
does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at
eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to
coop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,
and sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see
how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with
another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got
an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,
and I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I WAS
so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned
against a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling
until they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,
and ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I
parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man
was about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.
I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I
put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it out again. I