“La-ē-la!
La-ē-la!”
and murmuring caressingly in an unknown tongue.
Then, suddenly in the pale sunshine, scores of little birds came hovering around them, alighting all over them. And he saw them swarming out of the mossy festoons of the water-oaks—scores and scores of tiny birds—Parula warblers, mostly—all flitting fearlessly down to alight upon his shoulders and knees, all keeping up their sweet, dreamy little twittering sound.
“This is wonderful,” he whispered.
The girl laughed, took several birds on her forefinger.
“This is nothing,” she said. “If I only dared—wait a moment!—--” And, to the Parula warblers:
“Go home, little friends of God!”
The air was filled with the musical whisper of wings. She passed her right arm around her husband’s neck.
“Look at the river,” she said.
“Good God!” he blurted out. And sat dumb.