wung near enough, caught one arm around the
tree trunk. It was a hard scramble, but she stood upon it triumphantly.
It bore her weight, yet she must go higher, for she could not reach the
temptingly-laden limb. Now and then a branch swayed--if she had her
stick up here that she had dropped so disdainfully when she had captured
the limb.

"It is a good thing to be sure you will not want what you fling away,"
she said to herself, sententiously.

"Aha!" She had caught the limb and drew it in carefully. There she sat,
queen of a solitary feast. Were ever plums so luscious! Some of the
ripest fell to the ground and smashed, making cones of golden red, with
a tiny cap of purple at the top.

In the old Latin book she still dipped into occasionally there were
descriptions of orchards laden with fruit that made the air around
fragrant. She could imagine herself there.

In that country there were gods everywhere, by the streams, where one
named Pan played on pipes. What were pipes that could emit music? The
nooks hid them. The zephyrs repeated their songs and laments.

There was a swift dazzle and a bird lighted on the branch above her, and
poured out such a melodious warble that she was entranced. A bird from
some other tree answered. Ah! what delight to eat her fill to measures
of sweetest music, and she suddenly joined in.

The young fellow who had been following a beaten path paused in amaze.
Was it a human voice? It broke off into a clear, beautiful whistle that,
striking against a ledge of rock, rebounded in an echo. He crept along
on the soft grass, where the underbrush had some time been fired. The
tree was swaying to and fro, and a shower of fruit came to the ground.

He drew nearer and then he espied the dryad. From one point he could see
a girl, sitting in superb unconcern. Was it the one he had been
searching for diligently the last hour? How had she been able to perch
herself up there?

Presently she had taken her fill of the fruit, of swinging daintily to
and fro, of watching the sun-beams play hide-and-seek among the distant
fir trees, that held black nooks in their shade, of studying with
intense ecstasy the wonderful colors gathering around the setting sun,
for which she had no name, but that always seemed as if set to some
wondrous music. Every pulse stirred within her, making life itself
sweet.

She stepped down on the lower limb. It would be rather rough to slide
down the tree trunk, but she had not