ext morning Bles slipped down and improved the nest; adding
foot-rests to make the climbing easy, peep-holes east and west, a bit
of carpet over the bark, and on the rough main trunk, a little picture
in blue and gold of Bougereau's Madonna. Zora sat hidden and alone in
silent ecstasy. Bles peeped in--there was not room to enter: the girl
was staring silently at the Madonna. She seemed to feel rather than hear
his presence, and she inquired softly:

"Who's it, Bles?"

"The mother of God," he answered reverently.

"And why does she hold a lily?"

"It stands for purity--she was a good woman."

"With a baby," Zora added slowly.

"Yes--" said Bles, and then more quickly--"It is the Christ Child--God's
baby."

"God is the father of all the little babies, ain't He, Bles?"

"Why, yes--yes, of course; only this little baby didn't have any other
father."

"Yes, I know one like that," she said,--and then she added softly: "Poor
little Christ-baby."

Bles hesitated, and before he found words Zora was saying:

"How white she is; she's as white as the lily, Bles; but--I'm sorry
she's white--Bles, what's purity--just whiteness?"

Bles glanced at her awkwardly but she was still staring wide-eyed at the
picture, and her voice was earnest. She was now so old and again so much
a child, an eager questioning child, that there seemed about her
innocence something holy.

"It means," he stammered, groping for meanings--"it means being
good--just as good as a woman knows how."

She wheeled quickly toward him and asked him eagerly:

"Not better--not better than she knows, but just as good, in--lying and
stealing and--and everything?"

Bles smiled.

"No--not better than she knows, but just as good."

She trembled happily.

"I'm--pure," she said, with a strange little breaking voice and
gesture. A sob struggled in his throat.

"Of course you are," he whispered tenderly, hiding her little hands in
his.

"I--I was so afraid--sometimes--that I wasn't," she whispered, lifting
up to him her eyes streaming with tears. Silently he kissed her lips.

From that day on they walked together in a new world. No revealing word
was spoken; no vows were given, none asked for; but a new bond held
them. She grew older, quieter, taller, he humbler, more tender and
reverent, as they toiled together.

So the days passed. The sun burned in the heavens; but the silvered
glory of the moon grew fainter and fainter and each night it rose late