Henry Brocken

rt blest com

ERT

aic and trustworthy; the country for miles around familiar to me as the palm of my hand. Yet so deeply was I involved, and so steadily had

edible wizardry, Rosinante seemed to have carried me out of a March morning,

cold towers and pinnacles into the last darkness of night. Above us in the twilight invisible larks climbed among the daybeams, singing a

cting me. I suppose after this we had journeyed about an hour, and the risen sun was on the extreme verge of t

d, in the shrill little song she or the wind seemed singing, for a moment half impelled me to turn aside. Even Rosinante pricked forward her ears, and stooped her gentle face to

re, little girl, that

t all," sh

gers find their way ac

ent. "Some by the stars, and s

cried. "But at

," she said, "

tle answers. "Why!" I exclaimed, "what a wo

d, looking up into my face. I thi

ay!" I r

riously, as if to herse

this is dewdrops s

nching. "How else can mother

ow to reach her bright belief. "And what

ad. "There is no

emember?-one winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and on, o

her lips. "That will be a long time since," she said, "and I must be off home." And as if it had been but an apparition of my eyes t

g her to take what way she pleased, I rode on, till at length we approached the woods I had descried. Presently we were jogging gently down into a deep and misty valley flan

ee flowers of other seasons than summer by the wayside, and to hear in June, for no other month could bear such green abundance, the thrush sing with a February voice. Here too, almost at my right hand, perched a score or more of robins, bright-dyed, warbling elvishly in chorus as if the

, and many another citizen of Thule, and was reassured. A man must either believe what he sees, or see what he believes;

this side, that side, at the uncustomary landscape; and I ever peering forward beneath my hat in eagerness to descry some living creature a little bigger than these conies and squirrels, to prove me yet in lands inh