than it had time to say it in; the birds singing and
flying; the air so soft and warm; and nobody here but me! Well, I'm glad
that even I am here,
just a little
girl like me, to tell Him there is somebody who
sees and thanks Him!" Then away she drifted into thoughts she could not
have framed in words, but which kept all fear from her and filled her
young soul with a
longing to be good and to do good. But she was not alone as she
believed.
Among those same alders lining the river bank lay another of God's
creatures, whose dreams were unlike the child's, indeed, but upon whose
clouded
mind the beauty of that hour
was not wholly lost. He had been asleep, as she afterward declared she
had not been,
and her converse with
herself aroused him. He had lain down where the bushes screened him
well--for
hiding was a second nature to this man--and he did not move when he
awoke. He merely fixed his
eyes upon Katharine as he saw her through the branches and
watched what she would d