His first impression was that he was done for. It seemed impossible to get his breath as he came up. He managed a stroke or two, and hung to the rock like a dead man. But his heart presently picked up its beat, he dragged his numb limbs out, and after a good rub-down he felt better than ever. So he rowed across and hunted up Dr. Rich. He walked half way up the hill to a little meadow hidden in the cedars, which were wonderful to look at in the dawn. The sun was turning them into luminous aquamarine, as if in a vain effort to reveal the atoms of that living wall. Music was gently issuing from a barn made of logs. He stole near, and beheld the good white head like a drift of snow against the deer-like flank of a Jersey. The doctor was milking a cow and singing a hymn, while Agricola stood guard. Marvin stopped and listened. The old sweet baritone continued to arise, there where the clover was lofted like immortelles: “Love divine, all love excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down.” “Good morning, my son. Don’t ask whether is such a thing as love divine, all love excelling. Just enjoy it.” “Shouldn’t I look facts in the face, sir?” “By all means, but the more you look them in the face, the more likely you are to see the face of God. You should not believe in God if you can help it but you can’t very well help it. Note how you fall into theology at every word. You speak of looking facts in the face, forgetting that facts have no faces. You chemists simply give them a face, thus acting the part of God. It’s all right. If there is no Good Lord in heaven, be a good lord yourself.” Marvin laughed, and promised to remember the advice. The milker rose with the pail, on which the foam was deep and white. The observer stood and admired the cow. “Doctor, note the way that front haunch comes down.” “Why, man, I’ve noted it every morning since she was a fawn. She comes home every night like a tame doe.” They strained the milk and took it to the ice house. From within the kitchen came the sound of a sweet voice humming a tune about the twelve days of Christmas and the gifts her true love sent to her, which included four Cornish birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge upon a pear tree. The two men stood smiling and listening. “Doctor, maybe I’d better get her some little gift before breakfast. What do you advise?” “My son, that partridge is a corruption of ‘part of a mistletoe bough’, alias golden bough. So you’d better bring her some sort of golden bough. Agricola, flowers!” The dog started up the hill, and Marvin followed. Resting on the ridge for a few minutes, he discovered a grave beneath the pines, nameless, but covered with little white blooms of mitchella, fragrant as any flower that blows.