soft sunshine, and
sympathy in the sweet rustle of the pine-leaves. Why not? Are they not
all God's voices? And the words of the Book were very precious there,
to me and many another. I was rather more left to myself of late. My
governess gave me my lessons quite as assiduously as ever; but after
lesson-time she seemed to have something else to take her attention.
She did not walk often with me as the spring drew near; and my Sunday
afternoons were absolutely unquestioned.

One day in March I had gone to my favourite place to get out a
lesson. It was not Sunday afternoon, of course. I was tired with my
day's work, or I was not very strong; for though I had work to do, the
witcheries of nature prevailed with me to put down my book. The scent
of pine-buds and flowers made the air sweet to smell, and the spring
sun made it delicious to feel. The light won its way tenderly among
the trees, touching the white marble tombstones behind me, but resting
with a more gentle ray upon the moss and turf where only little bits
of rough board marked the sleeping-places of our dependants. Just out
of sight, through the still air I could hear the river, in its
rippling, flow past the bank at the top of which I sat. My book hung
in my hand, and the course of Universal History was forgotten, while I
mused and mused over the two sorts of graves that lay around me, the
two races, the diverse fate that attended them, while one blue sky was
over, and one sunlight fell down. And "while I was musing the fire
burned" more fiercely than ever David's had occasion when he wrote
those words, "Then spake I with my tongue." I would have liked to do
that. But I could do nothing; only pray.

I was very much startled while I sat in my muse to hear a footstep
coming. A steady, regular footstep; no light trip of children; and the
hands were in the field, and this was not a step like any of them. My
first thought was, the overseer's come to spy me out. The next minute
I saw through the trees and the iron railings behind me that it was
not the overseer. I knew _his_ wideawake; and this head was crowned
with some sort of a cap. I turned my head again and sat quiet; willing
to be overlooked, if that might be. The steps never slackened. I heard
them coming round the railing--then just at the corner--I looked up to
see the cap lifted, and a smile coming upon features that I knew; but
my own thoughts were so very far away that my visitor had almost
reached my si