shuddered two or three times), though this was hardly likely in that
warm summer weather; or, perhaps, and most probably, one of his old
dreaming fits had come upon him suddenly.

He put his tools together, ready for tomorrow, and walked slowly out. At
the side of the wagon-house there was a world of bright sunshine, and
a hen with her chickens was scratching among the gravel. Waldo seated
himself near them with his back against the red-brick wall. The long
afternoon was half spent, and the kopje was just beginning to cast its
shadow over the round-headed yellow flowers that grew between it and the
farmhouse. Among the flowers the white butterflies hovered and on the
old kraal mounds three white kids gambolled, and at the door of one of
the huts an old grey-headed Kaffer-woman sat on the ground mending her
mats. A balmy, restful peacefulness seemed to reign everywhere. Even the
old hen seemed well satisfied. She scratched among the stones and called
to her chickens when she found a treasure; and all the while tucked to
herself with intense inward satisfaction.

Waldo, as he sat with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms
folded on them, looked at it all and smiled. An evil world, a deceitful,
treacherous, mirage-like world it might be; but a lovely world for all
that, and to sit there gloating in the sunlight was perfect. It was
worth having been a little child, and having cried and prayed so one
might sit there. He moved his hands as though he were washing them in
the sunshine. There will always be something worth living for while
there are shimmery afternoons. Waldo chuckled with intense inward
satisfaction as the old hen had done--she, over the insects and the
warmth; he, over the old brick walls, and the haze, and the little
bushes. Beauty is God's wine, with which He recompenses the souls that
love Him; He makes them drunk.

The fellow looked, and at last stretched out one hand to a little
ice-plant that grew on the sod wall of the sty; not as though he would
have picked it, but as it were in a friendly greeting. He loved it. One
little leaf of the ice-plant stood upright, and the sun shone through
it. He could see every little crystal cell like a drop of ice in the
transparent green, and it thrilled him.

There are only rare times when a man's soul can see Nature.

So long as any passion holds its revel there, the eyes are holden that
they should not see her.

Go out if you will and walk alone on the h