us flowering bush under which she rested. It was not more than
four feet above her head, but she lay so still and motionless that a
jewelled honeysucker came and hovered over the flowers, darting from one
to another like a many-coloured flash. Thence her glance travelled to
the great column of boulders that towered above her, and that seemed to
say, "I am very old. I have seen many springs and many winters, and
have looked down on many sleeping maids, and where are they now?
All dead--all dead," and an old baboon in the rocks with startling
suddenness barked out "_all dead_" in answer.

Around her were the blooming lilies and the lustiness of springing life;
the heavy air was sweet with the odour of ferns and the mimosa flowers.
The running water splashed and musically fell; the sunlight shot in
golden bars athwart the shade, like the memory of happy days in the
grey vista of a life; away in the cliffs yonder, the rock-doves were
preparing to nest by hundreds, and waking the silence with their cooing
and the flutter of their wings. Even the grim old eagle perched on
the pinnacle of the peak was pruning himself, contentedly happy in
the knowledge that his mate had laid an egg in that dark corner of the
cliff. All things rejoiced and cried aloud that summer was at hand and
that it was time to bloom and love and nest. Soon it would be winter
again, when things died, and next summer other things would live under
the sun, and these perchance would be forgotten. That was what they
seemed to say.

And as Jess lay and heard, her youthful blood, drawn by Nature's
magnetic force, as the moon draws the tides, rose in her veins like the
sap in the budding trees, and stirred her virginal serenity. All the
bodily natural part of her caught the tones of Nature's happy voice that
bade her break her bonds, live and love, and be a woman. And lo! the
spirit within her answered to it, flinging wide her bosom's doors, and
of a sudden, as it were, something quickened and lived in her heart that
was of her and yet had its own life--a life apart; something that sprang
from her and another, which would always be with her now and could
never die. She rose pale and trembling, as a woman trembles at the first
stirring of the child that she shall bear, and clung to the flowery
bough of the beautiful bush above, then sank down again, feeling that
the spirit of her girlhood had departed from her, and another angel had
entered there; knowing that she