"There is nothing in the bird's mind, except to find a mate, build a nest and rear some young; to feed them until they can care for themselves, and, though there is much romance about the mother bird, they are always eager to get rid of their offspring. He sings because God has given him a song, his language. But he has no thought of heaven."
"Oh, he must have!" she cried passionately.
The master studied her.
"Art thou ready to die, to go out of the world, to be put into the dark ground?"
"Oh, no! no!" Jeanne shuddered. "It is because I like to live, to breathe the sweet air, to run over the grass, to linger about the woods and hear all the voices. The pines have one tone, the hemlocks and spruces another, and the soft swish of the larches is like the last tender notes of some of the hymns I sing with the sisters occasionally. And the sun is so glorious! He clasps the baby leaves in his unseen hands and they grow, and he makes the blades of grass to dance for very joy. I catch him in my hands, too; I steep my face in the floods of golden light and all the air is full of stars. Oh, no, I would not, could not die! I would like to live forever. Even Pani is in no haste to die."
"Thou art a strange child, surely. I have read of some such in books. And I wonder that the heaven of the nuns does not take more hold of thee."
"But I do not like the black gowns, and the coifs so close over their ears, and the little rooms in which one is buried alive. For it seems like dying before one's time, like being half dead in a gay, glad world. Did not God give it to us to enjoy?"
The master nodded. He wondered when she was in these strange moods. And he noticed that the mad pranks grew less, that there were days when she studied like a soul possessed, and paid little heed to those about her.
But when a foreign letter with a great waxen seal came to her one day her delight knew no bounds. It was not a noisy joy, however.
"Let us go out under the oak," she said to Pani.