than a year--'t is written all
around us so."

"Written? I have never seen it written."

"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but 't is because you have not
looked to see. Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its
green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old
age? When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more
than a year before it blooms again? Is it more than a year from bud to
bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit? 'T is God's way of
showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."

The Piper's voice was very tender; the little dog lay still at his
feet. She leaned against the crumbling wall, and turned her veiled
face away.

"'T is not for us to be happy without trying," continued the Piper,
"any more than it is for a tree to bear fruit without effort. All the
beauty and joy in the world are the result of work--work for each other
and in ourselves. When you see a butterfly over a field of clover, 't
is because he has worked to get out of his chrysalis. He was not
content to abide within his veil."

"Suppose," said Miss Evelina, in a voice that was scarcely audible,
"that he couldn't get out?"

"Ah, but he could," answered the Piper. "We can get out of anything,
if we try. I'm not meaning by escape, but by growth. You put an acorn
into a crevice in a rock. It has no wings, it cannot fly out, nobody
will lift it out. But it grows, and the oak splits the rock; even
takes from the rock nourishment for its root."

"People are not like acorns and butterflies," she stammered. "We are
not subject to the same laws."

"Why not?" asked the Piper. "God made us all, and I'm thinking we're
all brothers, having, in a way, the same Father. 'T is not for me to
hold myself above Laddie here, though he's a dog and I'm a man. 'T is
not for me to say that men are better than dogs; that they're more
honest, more true, more kind. The seed that I have in my hand, here,
I'm thinking 't is my brother, too. If I plant it, water it, and keep
the weeds away from it, 't will give me back a blossom. 'T is service
binds us all into the brotherhood."

"Did you never," asked Evelina, thickly, "hear of chains?"

"Aye," said the Piper, "chains of our own making. 'T is like the
ancient people in one of my ragged books. When one man killed another,
they chained the dead man to the living one, so that he was forever
dragging his own sin. When he struck