some one without a soul.

One day at the hour when the
machines rested and the human beings that tended them rested too,
the wind being at that time from the direction of the marshlands,
the soul of Mary Jane lamented bitterly. Then, as she stood outside
the factory gates, the soul irresistibly compelled her to sing, and
a wild song came from her lips, hymning the marshlands. And into her
song came crying her yearning for home, and for the sound of the
shout of the North Wind, masterful and proud, with his lovely lady
the Snow; and she sang of tales that the rushes murmured to one
another, tales that the teal knew and the watchful heron. And over
the crowded streets her song went crying away, the song of waste
places and of wild free lands, full of wonder and magic, for she had
in her elf-made soul the song of the birds and the roar of the organ
in the marshes.

At this moment Signor Thompsoni, the well-known English tenor,
happened to go by with a friend. They stopped and listened; everyone
stopped and listened.

'There has been nothing like this in Europe in my time,' said Signor
Thompsoni.

So a change came into the life of Mary Jane.

People were written to,
and finally it was arranged that she should take a leading part in
the Covent Garden Opera in a few weeks.

So she went to London to learn.

London and singing lessons were
better than the City of the Midlands and those terrible machines.
Yet still Mary Jane was not free to go and live as she liked by the
edge of the marshlands, and she was still determined to be rid of
her soul, but could find no one that had not a soul of their own.

One day she was told that the English people would not listen to her
as Miss Rush, and was asked what more suitable name she would like
to be called by.

'I would like to be called Terrible North Wind,' said Mary Jane, 'or
Song of the Rushes.'

When she was told that this was impossible and Signorina Maria
Russiano was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she had
acquiesced when they took her away from her curate; she
knew nothing of the ways of humans.

At last the day of the Opera
came round, and it was a cold day of the winter.

And Signorina Russiano appeared on the stage before a crowded house.

And Signorina Russiano sang.

And into the song went all the longing of her soul, the soul that
could not go to Paradise, but could only worship God and know the
meaning of music, and the longing pervaded t