Peregrine laughed, and struck a couple of chords on the tabor. “I see freedom pleasing me most at the moment,” he said. And set himself to sing: “_Of all good gifts is freedom more To man than other good gifts be, By it he sets most gracious store. To roam at will o’er hill and lea Is truly more to him than gold, Or silver very freely given. Methinks the heart grows never old That ne’er has been in thraldom driven. Who lives in freedom lives at ease, Knows naught of ill or irksome care._ _There’s little else a man may please In freedom’s stead; no goodly share Of oil or wine or golden corn. Since freedom is both blythe and gay, And like to earth’s most fairest morn, Of freedom will I sing alway._” His voice died away. The girl looked down upon him. “A fair song,” she said appraisingly, setting her teeth in the side of a red apple. And then she laughed. “Why do you laugh?” asked Peregrine. She stretched one arm wide, embracing Nature, as it were. “Because the day is very good, and because the apple is sweet, and because—because I am alive.” She bit again into the apple. Peregrine eyed her approvingly. “Three most excellent reasons. You find happiness in life?” “Why not?” quoth she between her munching. “Is it not well to be alive? Does not the sun shine for me, the wind blow for me, the earth bear fruit for me, the birds sing to me? Truly I find happiness in life.” “You envy none?” asked Peregrine. She laughed. “Whom should I envy? Old Mother Esther down yonder, who has three cows, and is toothless, and has a wart as big as a hazel-nut on her nose? Grizel Burnside, who has a husband who beats her six nights out of the seven, and half a dozen squalling brats tugging at her skirts? Lambert Groot, who they say has a bag of gold pieces he counts the while he yells with rheumatic pains? For my part, I say let Esther keep her cows and her wart and her lack of teeth; Grizel, her husband and her brats; Lambert, his gold and his rheumatism. I am happier with our one cow, my own teeth, my freedom, and my health. I’d barter no jot nor tittle of my own self for all their belongings in a heap at my feet. I am I, and glad on it.” An unconscious egoist, she faced him laughing from the ladder. “Yet,” suggested Peregrine, “there are others rich, well-fed, and with good health,—plenty of them in the world. Do you not envy them?”