They found it the most cheery, neighborly, and comfortable kind of a brook, the quiet and well-contained sort that one could step at will from bank to bank, and see with half an eye what a prime favorite it was among its neighbors. Patsy and the tinker marked how close things huddled to it, even creeping on to cover stones and gravel stretches; there were moss and ferns and little, clinging things, like baby's-breath and linnea. The major part of the bird population was bathing in the sunnier pools, soberly or with wild hilarity, according to disposition. The tinker knew them all, calling to them in friendly fashion, at which they always answered back. Patsy listened silently, wrapped in the delight and beauty of it. On went the brook--dancing here in a broken patch of sunshine--quieting there between the banks of rock-fern and columbine, to better paint their prettiness; and all the while singing one farther and farther into the woods. She was just wondering if there could be anything lovelier than this when the tinker stopped, still and tense as a pointer. She craned her head and looked beyond him--looked to where the woods broke, leaving for a few feet a thinly shaded growth of beech and maple. The sunlight sifted through in great, unbroken patches of gold, falling on the beds of fern and moss and--yes, there they were, the promised lady's-slippers. A little, indrawn sigh of ecstasy from Patsy caused the tinker to turn about. "Then you're not hatin' gold when you find it growin' green that-a-way?" he chuckled. Patsy shook her head with vehemence. "Never! And wouldn't it be grand if nature could be gathering it all up from everywhere and spinning it over again into the likes of those! In the name o' Saint Francis, do ye suppose if the English poets had laid their two eyes to anything so beautiful as what's yonder they'd ever have gone so daffy over daffodils?" "They never would," agreed the tinker. Patsy studied him with a sharp little look. "And what do ye know about English poets, pray?" His lower jaw dropped in a dull, foolish fashion. "Nothin'; but I know daff'dils," he explained at last. And at that moment the call of a thrush came to them from just across the glade. Patsy listened spellbound while he sang his bubbling song of gladness through half a score of times. "Is it the flowers singing?" she asked at last, her eyes dancing mischievously. "It might be the souls o' the dead ones." The tinker considered thoughtfully a moment. "Maybe the souls o' flowers become birds, same as ours becomes angels--wouldn't be such a deal o' difference--both takin' to wings and singin'." He chuckled again. "Anyhow, that's the bellbird; and I sent him word yesterday by one o' them tattlin' finches to be on hand just about this time." "Ye didn't order a breakfast the same way, did ye?"