ion, appeared tender young shoots, fresh as the
grass by the brook, and green as chrysophase and emerald.

The stillness of morning reigned within the forest, yet it was full of
life, rich in singing, chirping and twittering. Light streamed from the
blue sky through the tree-tops, and the golden sunbeams shimmered
and danced over the branches, trunks and ground, as if they had been
prisoned in the woods and could never find their way out. The shadows
of the tall trunks lay in transparent bars on the underbrush, luxuriant
moss, and ferns, and the dew clung to the weeds and grass.

Nature had celebrated her festival of resurrection at Easter, and the
day after the morrow joyous Whitsuntide would begin. Fresh green life
was springing from the stump of every dead tree; even the rocks afforded
sustenance to a hundred roots, a mossy covering and network of thorny
tendrils clung closely to them. The wild vine twined boldly up many a
trunk, fruit was already forming on the bilberry bushes, though it
still glimmered with a faint pink hue amid the green of May. A thousand
blossoms, white, red, blue and yellow, swayed on their slender stalks,
opened their calixes to the bees, unfolded their stars to deck the
woodland carpet, or proudly stretched themselves up as straight as
candles. Grey fungi had shot up after the refreshing rain, and gathered
round the red-capped giants among the mushrooms. Under, over and around
all this luxuriant vegetation hopped, crawled, flew, fluttered, buzzed
and chirped millions of tiny, short-lived creatures. But who heeds them
on a sunny Spring morning in the forest, when the birds are singing,
twittering, trilling, pecking, cooing and calling so joyously? Murmuring
and plashing, the forest stream dashed down its steep bed over rocks and
amid moss-covered stones and smooth pebbles to the valley. The hurrying
water lived, and in it dwelt its gay inhabitants, fresh plants grew
along the banks from source to mouth, while over and around it a third
species of living creatures sunned themselves, fluttered, buzzed and
spun delicate silk threads.

In the midst of a circular clearing, surrounded by dense woods, smoked a
charcoal kiln. It was less easy to breathe here, than down in the forest
below. Where Nature herself rules, she knows how to guard beauty and
purity, but where man touches her, the former is impaired and the latter
sullied.

It seemed as if the morning sunlight strove to check the smoke from