watched a bird who
soared and sang for a little time, and then it sped swiftly away down
the steep air and out of sight in the blue distance. Even when it was
gone the song seemed to ring in her ears. It seemed to linger with her
as a faint, sweet echo, coming fitfully, with little pauses as though a
wind disturbed it, and careless, distant eddies. After a few moments she
knew it was not a bird. No bird's song had that consecutive melody, for
their themes are as careless as their wings. She sat up and looked about
her, but there was nothing in sight: the mountains sloped gently above
her and away to the clear sky; around her the scattered clumps of
heather were drowsing in the sunlight; far below she could see her
father's house, a little grey patch near some trees-and then the music
stopped and left her wondering.

She could not find her goats anywhere although for a long time she
searched. They came to her at last of their own accord from behind a
fold in the hills, and they were more wildly excited than she had ever
seen them before. Even the cows forsook their solemnity and broke into
awkward gambols around her. As she walked home that evening a strange
elation taught her feet to dance. Hither and thither she flitted in
front of the beasts and behind them. Her feet tripped to a wayward
measure. There was a tune in her ears and she danced to it, throwing
her arms out and above her head and swaying and bending as she went.
The full freedom of her body was hers now: the lightness and poise and
certainty of her limbs delighted her, and the strength that did not
tire delighted her also. The evening was full of peace and quietude, the
mellow, dusky sunlight made a path for her feet, and everywhere through
the wide fields birds were flashing and singing, and she sang with them
a song that had no words and wanted none.

The following day she heard the music again, faint and thin, wonderfully
sweet and as wild as the song of a bird, but it was a melody which
no bird would adhere to. A theme was repeated again and again. In the
middle of trills, grace-notes, runs and catches it recurred with a
strange, almost holy, solemnity,--a hushing, slender melody full of
austerity and aloofness. There was something in it to set her heart
beating. She yearned to it with her ears and her lips. Was it joy,
menace, carelessness? She did not know, but this she did know, that
however terrible it was personal to her. It was her unborn thought