y shy of them! She fancied they might be happier without
her, so she kept mostly to the company of her piano, her books, and her
bees, and the little people were left very much to their own devices.

As long as the weather was fine enough they almost lived out of doors,
and were perfectly happy; but when it "broke," as country folks
say--when the heavy autumn rain beat against the nursery window, and the
wind shook and swayed the cedar tree on the lawn until it sighed and
moaned as if in sorrow for the death of summer--then they longed for the
dear, loving daddy with a longing that was almost pain! They had letters
from him as often as was possible. Darby wrote in reply, and Joan
covered a piece of paper with pot-hangers, with a whole string of
odd-looking blots at the end, which she said were kisses and her message
for daddy. Letter-writing, however, especially if one does not write
easily, is but a poor substitute for speech. It did not seem to bring
their father close to them as he came in conversation.

And so it happened, exactly as Darby had foreseen, that now since he was
gone there were just the two of them left--Darby and Joan!

CHAPTER III.

THE BABES IN THE WOOD.

"'What are you singing of, soft and mild,
Green leaves, waving your gentle hands?
Is it a song for a little child,
Or a song God only understands?'

Answered the green leaves, soft and mild,
Whispered the green leaves, soft and clear,--
'It is a song for every child,
It is a song God loves to hear;
It is the only song we know,
We never question how or why.
'Tis not a song of fear or woe,
A song of regret that we must die;
Ever at morn and at eventide
This is our song in the deep old wood,--
"Earth is beautiful, heaven is wide;
And we are happy, for God is good!"'"

F. E. WEATHERLY.

"Have you anything for us to do, Auntie Alice?" said Darby Dene one day,
after he had watched Aunt Catharine safely into the fowl-house to have a
look at her Brahmas.

It was a still, bright afternoon in October, when the ripe apples were
dropping from the trees in the garden, and up at Copsley Farm Mrs.
Grey's turkeys wandered at will over the stubble whence the grain had
all been carted and built into stacks beside the farmyard.

"Do say that you can think of something, please," pleaded the boy--"a
message or anything. We are so tired