see anything," replied the boy ruefully.
"Maybe the moon will shine soon; then we'll find our way," he added,
still trying to cheer his little chum as best he could.

For a while they were silent. Joan was almost asleep, with her head
still resting on Darby's breast. None but the creatures of the wild were
near them; only the sounds of the night were in the air--those soft,
mysterious voices that whisper to the listening soul of the spirit world
which wraps so closely round the pure in heart.

But stay! Who dare disturb the sweetness of nature's symphony? Whose
stealthy steps are those that steal so cautiously over the tell-tale
twigs and withered bracken? What figures are they that crouch and slide
from tree to tree, then pause within half a dozen yards of the wandered
children, ready to pounce like cruel beasts upon their prey?

The shuffling noise attracted Darby's attention. He looked all about
him, but observed nothing unusual. He peered into the gathering gloom,
yet failed to see the ugly, red-haired man, the bold, black-browed woman
who glared at them from behind a screen of hazel bushes. And again he
settled himself comfortably on the moss-grown stump, and drew Joan's
head into an easier position against his shoulder.

He thought she was asleep, and was nearly over himself, when suddenly
she sat up and said eagerly,--

"Darby, I'se been finkin'. Don't you know in that nice hymn of ours--the
one we singed to daddy the Sunday before he goed away--there's somefin'
about bein' 'guided by a star'? P'raps if we was to sing it now God
would un'erstand, and send a star to show us the way out of the wood."

Darby hesitated.

"Well, I don't know; I'm not sure," he said at length. "Still, if you
think singing would make you feel better we might try it," he yielded.
"Yes, we'll do a verse, anyway. It'll be cheerier than praying--not so
much like as if we were going to bed. And it doesn't really matter which
we do; God will be sure to know 'zactly what we mean. Now, are you
ready? Come on!"

And there, in the depths of the forest that to these two babes was as
desolate, dark, and drear as any of which they had heard in fairy tale
or nursery rhyme, they raised their clear, tremulous voices in pathetic
appeal to that unseen Presence whom from their cradles they had been
taught to look upon as "our Father:"--

"From the eastern mountains
Pressing on they come,
Wise men in their wisdom,
To His hum