wift he still was singing,
Lightening other pilgrims' load!"

Victorine bent her head and listened intently to this song. It touched
the best side of her nature.

"Indeed, that is a good song," she said to herself, "but it fitteth not
my singing. I make choice for whom I sing; I am not minded so to give
pleasure to all the world."

She racked her brains to recall some song which would be as pertinent a
reply to Willan's song as his had been to hers; but she could think of
none. She was vexed; for the romance of this conversing by means of
songs pleased her mightily. At last, half in earnest and half in fun,
she struck boldly into a measure on which she would hardly have ventured
could she have seen the serious and tender expression on the face of her
listener under the pear-tree. As Willan caught line after line of the
rollicking measure, his countenance changed.

"An elfish mood is upon her," he thought. "She doth hold herself so safe
in her chamber that she may venture on words she had not sung nearer at
hand. She is not without mischief in her blood, no doubt." And Willan's
own look began to grow less reverential and more eager as he listened.

"The bee is a fool in the summer;
He knows it when summer is flown:
He might, for all good of his honey,
As well have let flowers alone.

"The butterfly, he is the wiser;
He uses his wings when they 're grown;
He takes his delight in the summer,
And dies when the summer is done.

"A heart is a weight in the bosom;
A heart can be heavy as stone:
Oh, what is the use of a lover?
A maiden is better alone."

Victorine was a little frightened herself, as she sang this last stanza.
However, she said to herself: "I will bear me so discreetly at supper
that the man shall doubt his very ears if he have ever heard me sing
such words or not. It is well to perplex a man. The more he be
perplexed, the more he meditateth on thee; and the more he meditateth on
thee, the more his desire will grow, if it have once taken root."

A very wise young lady in her generation was this graduate of a convent
where no men save priests ever came!

Just as Victorine had sung the last verse of her song, she heard the
sound of wheels and voices on the road. Victor and Jeanne were coming
home. Willan heard the sounds also, and slowly arose from the ground and
sauntered into the courtyard. He had an instinct that it would be better
not to be seen under the