more, beneath the piercing grief of the acceptance. And she must know Marthe's truth. So she smiled at her. She went forward and sat down beside her. 'You have found the wood-wren by yourself,' she said, smiling on into Marthe's eyes. And now that she thus looked into those beautiful eyes the sense of something heavenly once more flooded her heart. She took Marthe's hand. 'It seems to me that I have not seen you for years and years.'
It was with difficulty that Marthe found her thoughts and her words. 'I imagined that you had left Buissac,' was what she said.
'Without saying good-bye? Oh—come now!' said Jill. She wanted to cry, for that Marthe should have thought this gave the full measure of their calamity; but she uttered her school-girl 'Come now!' and continued to smile into Marthe's eyes.
The bird, silenced for a moment by her approach, resumed its singing; the melodious little ditty, full of the plaintive sweetness of spring, followed by the piping of the strangely urgent, reiterated notes. They sat and listened, hand in hand, and Marthe looked up at him, with her.
When he had finished, she, too, smiled and murmured, 'Le petit ange.'
'Yes. That is it exactly. A little angel. And always so lonely; by himself; on tall trees,' said Jill, feeling a strange happiness come to her, from the bird's song, from Marthe's smile.
'But he sings to something,' said Marthe, still smil-
