She dipped the pail into the lake slowly, filling it with water. Then with a last sweeping glance over the golden-tinted waves, she returned to the shanty. Daddy Skinner by this time was seated in his chair, his grey face wearing an expression of misery.
"Ye air sicker this morning, honey, huh?" asked Tess anxiously, lifting the pail to the table.
"Yep, brat, awful sick, but mebbe I'll feel better after a while."
"Yer coffee'll be ready quicker'n scat, dear," said the girl. "Flop on my bed an' stretch out a minute. Tessibel'll get her daddy's breakfast."
Five minutes later she had fried the fish and made the coffee.
"I air goin' to give Daddy his eatin's first, Andy," she called up through the hole in the ceiling.
"All right; sure, do, kid," assented the dwarf.
Daddy Skinner gradually felt better, and during the morning Tessibel's youthful spirits rose by leaps and bounds. All through the day she warbled out her happiness, lovingly bantering the two crippled men. Thus the minutes crept on to eventide, to that hour on the ragged rocks with Frederick.
She left the shanty early, that she might commune undisturbed for a time with her dear wild world. Through the gloaming the dull sound of the cow bells came distinctly from Kennedy's farm. The roosters were crowing a last good-night to the sun. The monstrous shadows of the great forest trees were going to sleep in the earth for another night. While the daylight was fading, the girl sat relaxed against the rocks, her unfathomable eyes contemplating the purple-spanned lake. She had drifted into a reverie ... blissfully dreaming, with Frederick the foremost figure of her dreams. The solemn descent of night ever signified the mystery of his love to her. Now, from the fullness of her unalloyed joy, she glanced up at the sky and blessed the whole world. In imagination she deciphered the words the stars were forming. Stretched from pole to pole, they lettered the heavens with the wonders of infinitude. In a diadem of gold, "God is love" was written; from the unsearchable north to the south where in their turn the slender rimming clouds sent it on to the world beyond. "God is love," whispered the swaying trees, and "God is love" came softly to the ear of the sensitive girl, as an echo is flung back from the rocks and is sent home to its maker.