rtain enough
to feel justified in putting the whole egg into her mouth before
tasting it. The taste, however, was enough to make her reflect
that perhaps on the whole two eggs were sufficient for
breakfast, especially as there would be at least dinner and
supper before she could go further. As she did not wish to risk
another descent, she continued to sort out the eggs. She found
four that were, or seemed to be, all right. The thirteen that
looked doubtful or worse when tested by the light she restored
with the greatest care. It was an interesting illustration of
the rare quality of consideration which at that period of her
life dominated her character.

She put the four eggs in the bosom of her blouse and climbed up
to her eyrie. All at once she felt the delicious languor of body
and mind which is Nature's forewarning that she is about to put
us to sleep, whether we will or no. She lost all anxiety about
safety, looked hastily around for a bed. She found just the
place in a corner of the little tableland where the grass grew
tall and thick. She took from her bosom the four eggs--her
dinner and supper--and put them between the roots of a tree with
a cover of broad leaves over them to keep them cool. She pulled
grass to make a pillow, took off her collar and laid herself
down to sleep. And that day's sun did not shine upon a prettier
sight than this soundly and sweetly sleeping girl, with her oval
face suffused by a gentle flush, with her rounded young
shoulders just moving the bosom of her gray silk blouse, with
her slim, graceful legs curled up to the edge of her carefully
smoothed blue serge skirt. You would have said never a care,
much less a sorrow, had shadowed her dawning life. And that is
what it means to be young--and free from the curse of self-pity,
and ignorant of life's saddest truth, that future and past are
not two contrasts; one is surely bright and the other is sober,
but they are parts of a continuous fabric woven of the same
threads and into the same patterns from beginning to end.

When she awoke, beautifully rested, her eyes clear and soft, the
shadows which had been long toward the southwest were long,
though not so long, toward the southeast. She sat up and smiled;
it was so fine to be free! And her woes had not in the least
shaken that serene optimism which is youth's most delightful if
most dangerous possession. She crawled through the grass to the
edge of the rock and looked