Denise sat all alone in her phaeton, her elbows resting upon her knees, and her chin propped upon her hands. The soft brown curls fell all about her face, and the brown eyes, which matched the curls in color, looked dreamily off toward the glassy river. The linen carriage-robe had slipped from her knees and one end trailed out upon the fresh green grass upon which the phaeton stood, for she had driven out of the main road into a little by-way leading up the mountain, her favorite spot for a “good quiet think,” and she and Ned Toodles were reveling in the beauty of that early spring day. The atmosphere was so balmy, so filled with the thousand promises of spring, the sun so warm and comforting, without the oppressive heat that would come later in the season, and all nature so entrancing in the exquisitely soft green of her new spring attire, that it was no wonder that the sensitive, imaginative child of eleven should be transported into a fairy-like reverie, or the little pony, which had now been her constant companion for more than eighteen months, should, so far as an animal can sympathize with a human being’s moods, enter into sympathy with Denise’s. He stood perfectly still, his head turned slightly toward the river upon which Denise’s eyes rested, his head slightly drooping, and the usually wide-awake eyes partly closed, as though he, too, had nearly slipped away into the land of dreams. One ear, however, was turned backward toward the occupant of the phaeton, as though he had placed an anchor in the land of reality in which his beloved little mistress dwelt most of the time. To the right of the phaeton stretched the great woodland, with its silence, broken only by the wind whispering through the trees, and its bird-calls. It was a dreamy, beautiful world which Denise and her pet were dwelling in just there and then, and a fitting surrounding for a child whose life had been filled with sunshine, and whose nature reflected it, as well as for the little pony, who ever since he had become hers, eighteen months before, had not known the meaning of a harsh word or unkindness. Presently from out the woodland came the incomparable call of the wood-thrush, rising from its soft, tender note to the clear joyous call which told to all the world that life was, oh, so sweet! Denise raised her head from her hands and listened for the second call which she knew would follow. It came, and this time a little nearer, as though the bird were searching the woods for its mate. Then back went the answering call, but not from the bird’s mate. Raising her head, Denise puckered up the soft red lips, and clear and sweet from between them came the [Music] Then she listened for the answer. It came, and so did the bird, peering cautiously from a leafy covert, flying nearer and nearer the still figures at the roadside, hopping questioningly from bough to bough, as though asking, “Where is she?”