Life is beautiful and life is sweet; but what is life without that which the pure heart craves? The wind may sing to you in dulcing notes; the birds may send forth their most ravishing rhapsodies; the flowers may spray you with their cologne of incense; but what are they to the spirit in which the call is answered? The sun may shine, the moon may beam, the stars may twinkle; but what are they compared to the responsive cry of the soul's affinity. Deep, deep, unanswerable is the mystery. Edith asked the sun, the moon, the stars; the wind, the trees, the birds, the flowers, and everything; she felt the soothing wind, heard the singing birds, caught the lulling scents; but they all gave back the answer: mystery! mystery! It is all a mystery, that bright, beaming, radiating longing that paints the beautiful pictures from a palping heart that has received an echo from its secret throbs. As the sun climbed up his way, the wind lowered its beating pulses, and a shimmer of warmth spread over the hills and woods and fields and deep valleys. Life came up out of the east; and out of the depths of the hotel. Farmers would pass in their rattling rigs; woodmen roll by in their lumbering wagons; autos puff up the hills with their loads of pleasure seekers, stop awhile, unload, and spin on again. Late risers sauntered out on the veranda--ladies and gentlemen of leisure, and children--in idling costumes, and tramp off time, as a bracer for the morning feast. Noises came out of the interior, like a modified din from chambers of revelry. Bells, on straying sheep, or browsing cattle, tinkled in the distance. Axes rang somewhere in the silent forests; sounds of many kind broke out from everywhere; and the world was full astir. It was wonderful to Edith, this new life, with its healing balm of fresh air, bright sun, green vegetation, pleasant sounds--all undimmed, untarnished, uncontaminated by smoke and fog and grime of her native city. It was wonderful, to Edith, to see the bright faces of the mountain people, coming and going on their daily trips to Uniontown; it was wonderful to see how light-hearted, how gay, how spirited were those of the leisure class who spent their nights at this health-giving resort, and their days in the towns below. It was all wonderful, indeed. It was wonderful how fast she recovered her strength; how quickly the fires of health returned to her cheeks; how speedily her drooping spirits mounted to that pinnacle where the flagging soul ceases to repine. But was it all the bracing air, the burning sun, the happy birds, the blooming flowers, that effected her cure, as if by the magic touch of that enchantress, Isis? Mystery!