Hildegarde's Home. Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe

      Beside the Headless Cross.

      And they left him lying in his blood

      Upon the moor and moss,"

      as if Barthram's Dirge had anything to do with the story of Baucis and Philemon. But this young woman's head was very full of ballads and scraps of old songs, and she was apt to break into them on any or no pretext. She went on now with her favourite dirge, half reciting, half chanting it, as she mounted the sunny slope before her.

      Now she had reached the fringe of trees at the top of the slope, and found that it was the beginning of what looked like a considerable wood. "A pine wood!" said Hildegarde, sniffing the spicy perfume with delight. "Oh, pleasant place! No plants, but one cannot have everything. Oh! how good it smells! and hark to the sound of the sea! I shall call this Ramoth Hill." She walked along, keeping near the edge of the wood, where it was still warm and luminous with sunshine. Now she looked up into the murmuring cloud of branches above her, now she looked down at the burnished needles which made a soft, thick carpet under her feet; and she said again, "Oh, pleasant place!" Presently, in one of the upward glances, she stopped short. Her look, from carelessly wandering, became keen and intent. On one of the branches of the tree under which she stood was a small, round object. "A nest!" said Hildegarde. "The question is, What nest?" She walked round and round the tree, like a pointer who has "treed" a partridge; but no bird rose from the nest, nor could she see at all what manner of nest it was. Finding this to be the case, she transferred her scrutiny from the nest to the tree. It was a sturdy pine, with strong, broad branches jutting out, the lowest not so very far above her head, a most attractive tree, from every point of view. Hildegarde leaned against the trunk for a moment, smiling to herself, and listening to the "two voices." "You are seventeen years old," said one voice. "Not quite," said the other. "Not for a month yet. Besides, what if I were?" "Suppose some one should come by and see you?" said the first voice. "But no one will," replied the second. "And perhaps you can't do it, anyhow," continued the first; "it would be ridiculous to try, and fail." "Just wait and see!" said the second voice. And when it had said that, Hildegarde climbed the tree.