and the louder the wind roared, the louder she sang. Presently, a light-winged seed swept by her; she reached out her pretty hand and caught it. It was an ugly brown seed; but she said, as she looked at it—

"Mother says, if I plant a seed, may be it will grow to be a tree. So I will see."

Then she scraped away a little of the mellow earth, and put the seed safely down, and covered it again. She made a little paling around the spot With dry sticks and twigs, and then a thoughtful mood came over her.

That brown seed is dead now, thought she; but it will lie there in the dark a great while, and then green leaves will come up, and a stem will grow; and some day it will be a great tree. Then it will live. But, if it is dead now, how can it ever live? What a strange thing life is! What makes life? It can't be the sunshine; for that has fallen on these stones ever so many years, and they are dead yet: and it can't be the rain; for these broken sticks are wet very often, and they don't grow. What is life?

The child grew very solemn at her own thoughts, and a feeling as if some one were near troubled her. She thought the wind must be alive; for it moved, and very swiftly, too, and it had a great many voices. If she only could know now what they said, perhaps they would tell what life was. And then she looked up at the aged oaks, as they reared their arms to the sky, and she longed to ask them the question, but dared not. A small spring leaped down from a a rock above her, and fled past with ceaseless murmurs, and she felt sure that it lived, too, for it moved and had a voice. And a strong feeling stirred the young soul, a sudden desire to know all things, to hold communion with all things.

Now the day was gone, and the child turned homewards; but she seemed to hear in sleep that night the whispered question, "What is life?" She was yet to know.

The seed had been blown away from a pine tree, and it took root downward and shot green spears upward, until, when a few summers had passed, it had grown so famously that a sparrow built her nest there, among the foliage, and never had her roof been so water-proof before. There, one day, came a tall, fair girl, with quick step and beaming eyes, and sat down at its root. One hand caressed lovingly the young pine, and one clasped a folded paper. How she had grown since she put that brown seed into the earth! She opened the paper and read; a bright color came to her cheeks, and her hand trembled—

"He loves me!" said she. "I cannot doubt it."

Then she read aloud—

"When you are mine, I shall carry you away from those old woods where you spend so much precious time dreaming vaguely of the future. I will teach you what life is. That its golden hours should not be wasted in idle visions, but made glorious by the exhaustless wealth of love. True life consists in loving and being loved."