her iron kettle. Drawing from her pocket flint and steel, she
struck them together, dropped a spark upon a piece of rotten wood,
purred out her pretty cheeks and blew it into a flame. As the fire
caught in the dry brushwood and began to leap heavenward, she followed
it with her great brown eyes until it vanished into space. Her spirit
thrilled with that same sense of awe and reverence which filled the
souls of primitive men when they traced the course of the darting flames
toward the sky. In the presence of fire, some form of worship is
inevitable. Before conflagrations our reveries are transformed into
prayers. The silently ascending tongues of flame carry us involuntarily
into the presence of the Infinite.

Filling her kettle with water from the running brook, she stirred into
it the herbs, the berries, the lizard, the frog and the cricket. This
part of her work completed, she sat down upon a bed of moss, drew forth
the sacred parchment and read its contents again and again.

"When the cauldron steams, dance about the fire and sing this song. As
the last words die away Matizan will leap from the flames and reveal to
thee the future."

Credulous child that she was, not the faintest shadow of a doubt floated
across her mind. She thrust the parchment back into her bosom, and as
the water began to bubble, leaped to her feet, threw her arms above her
head, sprang into the air, and went whirling away in graceful curves and
bacchantean dances.

There were in these movements, as in every dance, mysterious and perhaps
incomprehensible elements.

Who can tell whether they have their origin in the will of the dancer
alone, or in some outside force? The daisies in the meadow and the waves
of the sea dance because they are agitated by the wind. The little cork
automaton upon the sounding board of a piano dances because it is
agitated by the vibrations of the strings. The little children in the
alleys of a great city seem to be agitated in the same way by the
hurdy-gurdy!

Perhaps the rhythmic beating of the feet upon the ground surcharges the
body with electrical force, as by the touch of a magnet. There is a
mystery in the simplest phenomena of life.

Pepeeta, dancing upon the green moss beneath the great beech trees,
seemed to be in the hands of some external power, and could scarcely
have been distinguished from an automaton! She had brought her
tambourine, and holding it on high with her left hand or extending it
far