nd followed them with her eyes. One flock after another
disappeared behind the college hill so quickly that Tess could scarcely
bid them farewell. They were her summer friends, had filled the day with
brilliant song, and the night with love-twitterings.

Tessibel's forest solitude and rambles, her communion with night things
had passed, gone with the coming of Teola, gone with the care of the
babe. A longing for her old free life came back to her. She stooped down
and placed the basket upon the rocks, and, with her arms flung over her
head, tossed her face up to the sun. Her soul was dreaming, and the
dream changed the half-closed eyes from brown to black.

She stood silently, her gaze roving after the fleet-winged birds. They
were leaving her to the winter--and the sick child.

But Daddy, dear old Daddy, was coming back home! She caught her breath.
At that moment her father was the panacaea for all that she had suffered
during the last few weeks. Tears welled into her eyes. Just then another
great flock of black birds, huddling together, skimmed by through the
clear air. Tess threw out her hands.

"Good-bye, good-bye!" she shouted, with conflicting emotions. "Come
back again soon. It air lonely in the winter without ye."

As if the birds understood the longing in a kindred soul, the flock
halted an instant, seemingly loath to go, circled their mass of black
toward the sky, swept to the water's edge, poised for the fraction of a
second, then shot towards the University hill, and disappeared.

With the light-heartedness of youth, Tess reached the Longman cabin. A
silence reigned within which at first astonished her. The door was
closed, and Satisfied was nowhere in sight. She paused before rapping,
and looked to the shore for the boat. Disappointment shot through her:
Satisfied and Mrs. Longman had gone to the city. Nevertheless, Tess
tapped lightly, and then again. But no voice ordered her in. She lifted
the latch, felt the door yield to her touch, and stepped inside. Four
lean rats scurried cornerward, sinking from sight into dark holes;
numbers of lizards tailed silently backward from the sunbeam slanting
across the shanty door. But the sight was so usual to Tess that she
merely turned her head slightly, and smiled as if to departing friends,
and closed the door behind her. A long object stretched out upon a board
arrested her steps. It was covered with a sheet, and the breathless
gloom of the shanty caused Tess