es--they are afraid. All day and all night the rain and wind come
down, and the birds and wild fowl have no peace. I kissed--His feet, and
my throat was full of tears; but I called in my heart. Yet the storm and
the dark stay, and my father does not come."

"Let us be patient, my Fanchon."

"He went to guide the priest across the hills. Why does not God guide
him back?"

"My Fanchon, let us be patient."

"The priest was young, and my father has grey hair."

"Wilt thou not be patient, my child?"

"He filled the knapsack of the priest with food better than his own,
and--thou didst not see it--put money in his hand."

"My own, the storm may pass."

"He told the priest to think upon our home as a little nest God set up
here for such as he."

"There are places of shelter in the hills for thy father, my Fanchon."

"And when the priest prayed, 'That Thou mayst bring us safely to this
place where we would go,' my father said so softly, 'We beseech Thee to
hear us, good Lord!'"

"My Fanchon, thy father hath gone this trail many times."

"The prayer was for the out-trail, not the in-trail, my mother."

"Nay, I do not understand thee."

"A swarm of bees came singing through the room last night, my mother. It
was dark and I could not see, but there was a sweet smell, and I heard
the voices."

"My child, thou art tired with watching, and thy mind is full of
fancies. Thou must sleep."

"I am tired of watching. Through the singing of the bees as they passed
over my bed, I heard my father's voice. I could not hear the words, they
seemed so far away, like the voices of the bees; and I did not cry out,
for the tears were in my throat. After a moment the room was so still
that it made my heart ache."

"Oh, my Fanchon, my child, thou dost break my heart! Dost thou not know
the holy words?"

"'And their souls do pass like singing bees, where no man may follow.
These are they whom God gathereth out of the whirlwind and the desert,
and bringeth home in a goodly swarm.'"

Night drew close to the earth, and as suddenly as a sluice-gate drops
and holds back a flood the storm ceased. Along the crest of the hills
there slowly grew a line of light, and then the serene moon came up
and on, persistent to give the earth love where it had had punishment.
Divers flocks of clouds, camp-followers of the storm, could not abash
her. But once she drew shrinking back behind a slow troop of them;
for down at the bottom of a gorge lay a