The child shivered. God surely has the tendrils of a child's heart close-clinging to his own. Perhaps the wind murmured to her, _My grief! my grief!_ Perhaps the leaves whispered, _Sorrow, O sorrow!_ Perhaps the blind earth breathed, _My gloom!, my gloom!_ Perhaps the laughing sunlight sighed, or the wild bees crooned, or the doves moaned, _Peace! peace! peace!_ Oona's eyes grew dim. A trembling was upon her, like that of a bird in the hollow of the hand. Like a bird, too, was her heart: sure, the flutter of it was an eddy of joy in heaven. She came toward Nial with swift, noiseless step. He did not hear her approach; or if his wildwood ear caught a rustle, he did not look up. The first he knew of her was the stealing of a small arm round his neck: then the pressure of a warm body against his side: then a wisp of fragrant yellow hair tangled with his coarse, shaggy fell, a soft cheek laid against his, a hand like a little white hovering bird caressed his face. Sweetest of all, the whisper that stole into his dark brain as moonlight: "_Nial, darling Nial!_" His sobs ceased. Only his breath came quick and hard. His whole body panted, quivered still. "Forgive me, Nial! dear, good Nial! I did not mean to hurt you so. I was angry because of your words. But I--I--didn't really mean that _that_ was your soul. Nial, Nial, I didn't see your soul at all!" Slowly he lifted his wet inflamed face: his eyes agleam through the tangled locks that fell over his brows. "Have you _ever_ seen it, Oona?" He could just hear the whispered _No_. A deep sigh passed her ears, and she pressed closer to his sorrow. "Oona, my fawn, do you think you'll ever see it? Do you think I'll find it some day?" "Oh, yes, Nial! Yes--yes--yes!" "And you will help your poor ugly Nial to--to--find it?" "Sure, it is helping you I will be, with all my heart, Nial-a-ghràidh." He stooped his head over hers, lightly shoved her back, and kissed her sunshine-hair. She raised an arm and pulled his face to hers, and kissed him gently. A faint smile, a glimmer of sunlight on a wet, dishevelled road, came over his face. Oona sat back, relieved, but with questioning eyes. "Are you _sure_ you have no soul, Nial? Not even a small dark one that will grow some day, and be beautiful, just as _you_ will, when--when--you die?" "I am sure, birdeen. Ask Màm-Gorm, ask Sorcha, or Alan, or Murdo, or any of the people down yonder. They know. And _I_ know, when I look in the tarn, or in the pool below the Linn o' Mairg, or in smooth water anywhere: ay, and when the deer come to me, or the sheep do not stir out of my way, or the kye come close and breathe on me kindly. No bee will sting me, and the dragonflies, that even _you_ can't catch, rest sometimes, as the moths do, on my head or arm."