Probably the foot of man had never stood before in that retreat, hidden on all sides by trees. Pushing apart cautiously the slender limbs of the willows, we looked at the water, which was as smooth as a mirror, and blue. The beavers were not at their work yet; the little water-town slumbered in visible quiet; and such silence reigned on the lake that I heard Lillian’s breath when she thrust her golden head through the opening in the branches with mine and our temples touched. I caught her waist with my arm to hold her on the slope of the bank, and we waited patiently, delighted with what our eyes were taking in. Accustomed to life in wild places, I loved Nature as my own mother, though simply; but I felt that something like God’s delight in Creation was present. It was early morning; the light had barely come, and was reddening among the branches of the hickories; the dew was dropping from the leaves of the willows, and the world was growing brighter each instant. Later on, there came to the other shore prairie chickens, gray, with black throats, pretty crests on their heads, and they drank water, raising their bills as they swallowed. “Ah, Ralph! how good it is here,” whispered Lillian. There was nothing in my head then but a cottage in some lonely canyon, she with me, and such a rosary of peaceful days, flowing calmly into eternity and endless rest. It seemed to us that we had brought to that wedding of Nature our own wedding, to that calm our calm, and to that bright light the bright light of happiness within us. Now the smooth surface described itself in a circle, and from the water came up slowly the bearded face of a beaver, wet and rosy from the gleam of the morning; then a second, and the two little beasts swam toward the lake, pushing apart with their noses blue lines, puffing and muttering. They climbed the dam, and, sitting on their haunches, began to call; at that signal heads, larger and smaller, rose up as if by enchantment; a plashing was heard in the lake. The herd appeared at first to be playing,—simply diving and screaming in its own fashion from delight; but the first pair, looking from the dam, gave a sudden, prolonged whistle from their nostrils, and in a twinkle half of the beavers were on the dam, and the other half had swum to the banks and vanished under the willows, where the water began to boil, and a sound as it were of sawing indicated that the little beasts were working there, cutting branches and bark. Lillian and I looked long, very long, at these acts, and at the pleasures of animal life until man disturbs it. Wishing to change her position, she moved a branch accidentally, and in the twinkle of an eye every beaver had vanished; only the disturbed water indicated that something was beneath; but after a while the water became smooth, and silence surrounded us again, interrupted only by the woodpeckers striking the firm bark of the hickories.