to my ears. It
made me feel very melancholy; but I had not the hard heart to check the
girl, she seemed to take so much comfort in the hymn. My daily papers
came in; I read them; and the news of the Fort Pillow tragedy, which
reached us that day, draped around with the crimson and black of a first
report, deepened my sadness.

After luncheon I went out with the dogs for a walk, and spent two or
three hours roaming through the woods, groping among the fallen leaves
and mosses for the spicy-smelling, pinkish sprays of the
trailing-arbutus, or Pilgrims' Mayflower listening to the song of the
robins, and the fretful, querulous note of

"April's bird
Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree,"

and lulling my heart-pain in the fine, rushing sound made by the
pond-waters falling through the open gates of the dam.

I took a seat in a boat which was lying at anchor near the pebbled shore
of the pond, and looked up into the branches of a glowing swamp-maple,
whose starry blossoms were all aflame in the afternoon sunlight. A
congress of robins had assembled on the tree, and were in high
discussion,--probably on the rights of the blackbirds to the occupancy
of certain upper chambers of the air; presently they spread their little
wings, and as they floated off over my head, their flashing red-breasts
looked like winged scarlet tulip-petals.

"God's world is very beautiful!" I murmured, "but human sorrows weigh
the heart down."

I sat in the boat on the pond-strand without heeding the lapse of time,
just _mooning_, in that vague, listless way we women have, over

"Troubles too great to be my own,"--

the sore griefs and trials of a mighty nation.

The washing of the beautiful pond-waters on the shore gradually soothed
me: had they been ocean breakers, their solemn rhythm would have
increased my melancholy; but these inland streams have a cheerful,
every-day note. I watched the sparkling, leaping light on the surface of
the pond, and the long shimmers of rosy gleams that played over the
dancing waters, until my heart grew as bright as millions of
water-diamonds. The joyful little ripple against the pebbled bank helped
me amazingly, and so my heart slipping off insensibly form the weary,
useless fretting, I found myself at sunset feeling as free from care as
a child, and my homeward step was as springy as the gambols of my young
dogs.

I walked out into the high-road; slightly