Busy indeed at this vernal season was the mysterious Nurse of God's little world. Her hands rested not from her labors. She worked strange wonders on the waste, by magic of a million breaking buds, by burying of the dead, by wafting of subtle pollen-life from blossom to blossom. And in cliffs above the green waters the nests of her wild-fowl were already lined with wool and feather; neither were her samphires forgotten in their dizzy habitations; and salt spray sprinkled her uncurling sea ferns in caves and crannies where they grew. She laughed at the porpoises rolling their fat sides into sunshine; she brought the sea-otter where it should find fish for its young; she led giant congers to drowned men; she patted the sleek head of the sad-eyed seal. Elsewhere she showed the father-hawk a leveret crouching in his form; she took young rabbits to the new spring grass; the fox to the fowl, the fly to the spider, the blight to the bud. Her weakly nestlings fell from tree and cliff to die, but she beheld unmoved; her weasel sucked the gray-bird's egg, yet no hand was raised against the thief, no voice comforted the screaming agony of the mother. With the van of her legions she moved, and the suffering stragglers cried in vain, for her concerns were not with them. She did no right, she worked no evil; she was not cruel, neither shall we call her kind. The servant of God was she, then as always, heedful of His utterances, obedient to His laws. Which laws, when man better divines, he shall learn thy secret too, Nurse of the world, but not sooner. CHAPTER THIRTEEN LONELY DAYS Having already learned from experience that hard work quickens the flight of time, Joan, returning in happy mood to her home and with no trace of the past tears upon her cheeks, surprised Mrs. Tregenza by a display of most unusual energy and activity. She helped the butcher to get the pig into a low cart built expressly for the conveyance of such unwieldy animals; she looked mournfully at her departing companion, knowing that the morrow had nothing for him but a knife, that he had eaten his last meal. And while Joan listened to the farewell grunts of the fattest pig which had ever adorned her father's sty, Mrs. Tregenza counted the money and bit a piece here and there, and wondered if she could get the next young pig from Uncle Chirgwin for even a lower figure than the last.