e to see it with her.

"A great deal of it was built with my own hands, Sister Mary John and
I. You don't know her yet; she is our organist, and an excellent
one."

At that moment Evelyn laid her hand on Louise's arm, and a light
seemed to burst into her face.

"Listen!" she said, "listen to the bird! Don't you hear him?"

"Hear what, dear?"

"The bird in the branches singing the song that leads Siegfried to
Brunnhilde."

"A bird singing Wagner?"

"Well, what more natural than that a bird should sing his own song?"

"But no bird--" A look of wonder, mingled with fear, came into
Louise's face.

"If you listen, Louise." In the silence of the wood Louise heard
somebody whistling Wagner's music. "Don't you hear it?"

Louise did not answer at once. Had she caught some of Evelyn's
madness... or was she in an enchanted garden?

"It is a boy in the park, or one of the nuns."

"Nuns don't whistle, and the common is hundreds of yards away. And no
boy on the common knows the bird music from 'Siegfried'? Listen,
Louise, listen! There it goes, note for note. Francis is singing well
to-day."

"Francis!"

"Look, look, you can see him! Now are you convinced?"

And the wonder in Louise's face passed into a look of real fear, and
she said:

"Let us go away."

"But why won't you listen to Francis? None of my birds sings as he
does. Let me tell you, Louise--"

But Louise's step hastened.

"Stop! Don't you hear the Sword motive? That is Aloysius."

Louise stopped for a moment, and, true enough, there was the Sword
motive whistled from the branches of a sycamore. And Louise began to
doubt her own sanity.

"You do hear him, I can see you do."

"What does all this mean?" Louise said to the Reverend Mother,
drawing her aside. "The birds, the birds, Mother Superior, the
birds!"

"What birds?"

"The birds singing the motives of 'The Ring.'"

"You mean Teresa's bullfinches, Mademoiselle Helbrun? Yes, they
whistle very well."

"But they whistle the motives of 'The Ring!'"

"Ah! she taught them."

"Is that all? I thought she and I were mad. You'll excuse me, Mother
Superior? May I ask her about them?"

"Of course, Mademoiselle Helbrun, you can." And Louise walked on in
front with Evelyn.

"Mother Superior tells me you have taught bullfinches the motives of
'The Ring,' is it true?"

"Of course. How could they have learned the motives unless from me?"

"But why the motives of 'The Ring'?"

"Why not, Lou