All these familiar, pleasant sights and sounds delighted her. During the
long winter she had been shut away from this, her favorite spot among
the many lovely bits of wilderness about her, and now its every detail
filled her with a fresh and keen delight. She looked and listened
greedily, as happy as a city child, seated, for the first time in a
space of months, before a brightly lighted stage to watch a pantomime. A
dozen times she ran with little, bird-like cries to bend above some
opening wild-flower, a space she spent in watching two intently busy
king-birds, already fashioning their nest. Another squirrel charmed her
beyond measure by sitting, for a moment, on a limb to gaze at her in
bright-eyed curiosity, and then, with a swift run down the trunk, quite
near to her, as if entirely satisfied that he saw in her a certain
friend, scuttling to the water's edge for drink. She had never seen a
squirrel drink before--few people have--and she stood, as motionless as
might a maid of marble, watching him, until, having had his fill, he
gave his tail a saucy flirt and darted back to his beech fortress, to
sit again upon his limb and chatter gossip at her.

After he had gone back to his tree she looked carefully about her. It
now became apparent that she had come there to the pool for some
especial purpose and that she wished to be quite sure of privacy before
she put it into execution, for she went first to the path by which she
had descended, there to listen long, intently, then, with a lithe spring
where the brook narrowed at the pool's mouth, to the other side, where,
at some distance in the forest, by another woods-path's edge, she stood
again, intent and harkening.

Apparently quite satisfied that so far as human beings went her solitude
was quite complete, she returned, now, to the pool's edge and stood
gazing down upon its polished surface. Soon she dipped the toe of one
brown, slender foot into it, evidently prepared to draw back hastily in
case of too low temperature, but tempted, when she found the water warm,
she gently thrust the whole foot in, and then, gathering her skirt
daintily up to her knees, actually stepped into the water, wading with
little shrill screams of delight.

For a moment she stood poised there, both hands busy with her skirt,
which was pulled back tight against her knees. Then, after another hasty
glance around, she sprang out upon the bank with a quick gesture of
determination, and, close