A lark rose from the grass of the sloping meadow and began its ecstatic song as it climbed its ærie ladder upward to the pure blue. He listened to the quivering notes--a bubbling spring of melody babbling and wimpling and gurgling and flitting and fluttering as it fell through the sweet morning air. “Oh, marvel of liquid melody!” cried the man, letting his eyes soar with the soaring bird. “What is the message that is thine! What is that message which fills thy heart with joy and sends thee soaring out of the sight of man, enraptured to the sky? Is it a message from the sons of men that thou bear-est to the heavens? Is it a message from Heaven that thou sendest down to earth?” A butterfly fluttered up from beyond the hedge, carrying with it the delicate scent of unseen primroses. It hovered over the moss of the bank for a moment and then allowed itself to be blown like a brown leaf in the breeze in a fantastic course toward the group of harebells that made a faint blue mist over a yard of meadow. He watched its flight. The butterfly had once been taken as an emblem of the immortality of the soul, he remembered. Was it right that it should be thought such a symbol, he wondered. In latter years it was looked on as an example of all that is fickle and frivolous. Was it possible that the ancients saw more deeply into the heart of things--more deeply into the spirit of these forms of Nature? “Who can say what wise purpose of the Creator that gaudy insect may fulfil in the course of its brief existence?” said he. “We know that nothing had been made in vain. It may be that it flutters from flower to flower under no impulse of its own, but guided by the Master of Nature, whose great design would not be complete without its existence. That which we in our ignorance regard as an emblem of all that is vain and light may, in truth, be working out one of the gravest purposes of the All Wise.” He remained under the influence of this train of thought for some time. Then his horse gave a little start that brought back his rider from the realm into which he had been borne by his imagination. He caught up the rein, slipped his feet into his stirrups, and perceived that it was the fluttering dress of a girl, who had apparently sprung from the primrose hollow beyond the hedge, that had startled the animal. It seemed that the girl herself was also startled; she stood a dozen yards away, with her lips parted, and gave signs of flight a moment before he recognised her as one of the girls who had been at the Mill the night before--the girl who had been the central figure in the game which his entrance had interrupted. “Another butterfly--another butterfly!” he said aloud, raising his hand to salute Nelly Polwhele, who dropped him a curtsey with a faint reply to his “Good-morning.” He pushed his horse closer to her, saying: