On that afternoon Mariquita had walked out some distance across the prairie. Not in the direction of the Maxwell trail, but quite in the opposite direction. Her way brought her to what they called Saul Bluff--a very low, broken ridge, sparsely overgrown with small rather shabby trees. It would scarcely have hidden the chimneys of a cottage had there been any cottage on its farther side; but there was none anywhere near it. For many miles there was no building in any direction, except "Don Jo's," as, to its owner's annoyance, his homestead was called. When Mariquita had reached the top of the bluff she took advantage of the slight elevation on which she stood, to look round upon the great spread of country stretching to the low horizon on every side. It was, like most days here, a day of wind and sun. The air was utterly pure and scentless; the scent was not fir-scent, and the scattered, windy trees gave no smell. She saw a chipmunk and laughed, as the sight of that queer little creature, and its odd mixture of shyness and effrontery always made her laugh. It was even singularly clear, and the foothills of the Rockies were just visible. The trail, which ran over the bluff a little to her left, was full in sight below her, but so little used as to be slight enough. A mile farther on it crossed the river, and was too faint to be seen beyond. The river was five miles behind her as well as a mile in front, for it made a big loop, north, and then, west-about, southward. She sat down and for a long time was rapt in her own thoughts, which were not, at first, of any human person. Perhaps she would not herself have said that she was praying. But all prayer does not consist in begging favors even for others. Its essence does not lie in request, but in the lifting of self, heart and mind, to God. The love of a child to its father need not necessarily find its sole exercise and expression in demand. Her thought and love flew up to her Father and rested, immeasurably happy. The real joys of her life were in that presence. The sense of His love, not merely for herself, was the higher bliss it gave her: not merely for herself, I say, for it spread as wide as all humanity, and her own share in it was as little as a star in the milky way, in the whole glory, what it is for all the saints in heaven and on earth, for all sinners, for His great Mother, and, most immeasurable of all, the infinite perfection of His love for Himself, of Father and Son for the Holy Spirit, of Son and Spirit for the Eternal Father, of Spirit and Father for the Son. This stretched far beyond the reach of her vision, but she looked as far as her human sight could reach, as one looks on that much of the mystic ocean that eye can hold. Not separable from this joy in the Divine Love was her joy in the Divine Beauty, of which all created beauty sang, whether it were that of the smallest flower or that of Christ's Mother herself. The wind's clean breath