"Do as I tell thee, make that heavenly face thy very own by drawing it with the artist hands thy God has given thee! I love thee well, but I have loved her longer than thee. If the day is to come when her heart shall open to earthly passion, her eyes to the dear sight of thy face, let that day be blessed and hold it fast if thou canst. "I shall only look on; for that is the weary lot of those who live in the past: but once more I tell thee, paint, oh, paint her face--the time may come when it will be too late! "But now go to thy tent, for I am tired and the night is cold." Eric rose sadly and threaded his way through the sleeping camp, past the fires that were burning low, past the patient groups of tired horses, till he reached his bed. But Zorka sat still many an hour, following the shadowy road of her past, her dim eyes fixed upon the glowing ashes, speaking to the Being who rules our destinies, and asking over again the eternal, unanswered "Why?" looking up to the too distant sky which for ever keeps its mystery to itself. XXII He seeks to know The joy that is more great than joy The beauty of the old green earth can give. FIONA MACLEOD. Zorka kept her promise; and one day, who knows whence, Eric found all he needed for beginning the picture the old woman had commanded him to paint. The tents had been pitched quite near to a forest all shining and shimmering in every shade of gold; gold under foot, gold overhead, gold falling softly from every bough. The sun threw his glinting rays upon all the beauty that was a last glorious farewell Nature was taking from the departing year. The smoke of the camps and the mist of the autumn mornings mingled like spirit souls, and waved in moving vapours, veils that some fairy might have hung over the branches to fill her dwelling with mystic shadows and shades. From within the shelter of the wood, the great naked plain could be seen as far as the eye could reach, but the waving ocean of corn was a past dream of the summer months. Now the fields and pastures looked desolate and barren, dark and cold, even beneath the face of the kindly life-giving planet that shone down upon it with a friendly face. The rusty tents resembled dwarf pyramids standing upon some desert seen from afar off. But the forest was a palace fit for a king, fashioned out of lustrous rays all woven together into a web of sunny yellows, and there sat Eric for many an hour trying to make his picture live. Stella never refused to let him take her hand, and followed him meekly whither he led. He seated her upon a bank of grass, having first covered it over and over with leaves of fiery red. For her lovely feet he made a nest of warm green moss, and at her side he laid a sycamore leaf full of jet-black bramble-berries as polished as agate balls.