y.

Eventide is softly casting
O'er the earth a magic spell,
And a love-song, everlasting,
On the night wind seems to swell.

Deeper grow the lengthening shadows,
Darkening the heaven's blue,
One by one the stars are gleaming,
Night is nigh, would you were, too.

Donald hummed the words in his not unmelodious baritone, as he climbed
up the forest path down which, twelve months before, he had rushed
headlong, in blind anger.

The spell of the high, forest-clad hills, and the new-born night was upon
his spirit. Pleasant anticipations filled his heart, and left no room
for painful recollection as he hastened over the needle-strewn pathway
on which the white radiance of the full moon, shining through the
branches, made a tracery of silver and black.

Let men whose minds are governed wholly by cold commonsense, and whose
souls hold no spark of vitalizing imagination, scoff at moon-witchery
and lunar madness. Let them declare that the earth's haunting satellite
is merely a dead world which cannot even shine with its own light. Magic
it _does_ wield. And, just as it distorts and magnifies all commonplace,
familiar objects, so it twists the thoughts of men; just as it steals
away the natural colors from the things of earth, and substitutes for
them those of its own conception, so it alters the hues of man's
meditation.

The usually exuberant Mike trotted in silence, close to his master's
heels, and now and then cast suspicious glances aloft at the tall
spectre things which he knew to be trees.

Donald knew that it was rather absurd of him to be toiling up the
five-mile mountain path that night, when the next morning would have
done just as well; but he had thankfully thrown off the shackles of
civilization along with its habiliments. For two free, full weeks he
meant to live like a child of the out-of-doors, and to draw a brimming
supply of new energy from Mother Nature's never-failing breasts. Every
moment was precious.

As he neared the Gap, his winging thoughts flew ahead to Big Jerry's
cabin and to the child-woman who had so attracted him a year before.
Once more he told himself that she was nothing to him, and that now,
especially, he had no right to allow her, child though she were, to hold
so large a place in his heart. Yet what chance has reason in
competition with moonlight?

The clearing, with the cabin beyond it, came into view. The little house
was likewise a vi