How blue the skies were and how fresh was the air! Margaret felt that everything was friendly towards her. The flowers seemed to look into her eyes as she touched them with caressing fingers. She had always a feeling that they knew who loved them, and could be happy or sad as other and bigger things were. She never gathered them to die in hot rooms, or faint their lives away, plucked and then neglected. She loved and cared for them, and thought they knew it. The birds were growing silent, but a few even now sang to her, and she answered them. Yes, my Father cares for you, Little birds amid the blue; Praise Him, and I praise Him, too. You know little of His care; I, who feel Him everywhere, Voice my love in praise and prayer. You a little while may sing: I will love and praise my King, Yonder, in unending spring. There was no one in sight, and Margaret’s sweet, clear voice rose and fell as she pleased. Presently she was too happy even to sing, for God seemed so near to her, and all things so glad that her eyes grew dim for very sympathy with the world. A little aside from the path, and near a gate, was a beautiful ash-tree, whose roots provided a comfortable seat, and she sat down to rest, and was presently lost in thought. Some one was approaching, but she did not see or hear him until he was almost close to her. Then she arose and turned, her face lighted with the thought that had been last in her mind, and confronted John Dallington. He came eagerly forward, a great gladness in his heart. Margaret was glad, too, as the rose colour in her face might have told him, and she lifted her eyes a moment to his with all the pleasure in them; but they fell before his gaze, for it told her almost too much. “Which way are you going? Home? So am I. Let us go together—_together_.” He lingered on the word, for it was sweet to him—he would that they should always go together! “Margaret, say you are glad to see me, if you honestly can.” “I am unfeignedly glad,” said Margaret in a low voice, and she asked herself how she could possibly be other than glad? But she was almost frightened to find how great the joy was, and how necessary it became that she should keep her feelings under control. Ah! what a walk that was! They were both so young and so noble—so loving, too,—and all Nature was in sympathy with them. They had plenty to say—at least Dallington had; but the moments when they said nothing, and a soft silence fell upon them, were the sweetest, for they were side by side, and could glance into each other’s eyes when they did not hear the voice which was to the other the best-loved music of the world.