ed loudly
in our ears. The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds
which floated through the sky above us--for there had been rain--showed
a glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak.
Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her
life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had
gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world
that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which
she had read. It was a curious vision of life that she had: things were
out of proportion to it; it was more like a dream than a reality--a
mirage than the actual face of things. The idea of great cities, and
especially of London, had a kind of fascination for her: she could
scarcely realize the rush, the roar and hurry, the hard crowds of men
and women, strangers to each other, feverishly seeking for wealth and
pleasure beneath a murky sky, and treading one another down in the fury
of their competition.

"What is it all for?" she asked earnestly. "What do they seek? Having so
few years to live, why do they waste them thus?"

I told her that in the majority of instances it was actual hard
necessity that drove them on, but she could barely understand me. Living
as she had done, in the midst of the teeming plenty of a fruitful earth,
she did not seem to be able to grasp the fact that there were millions
who from day to day know not how to stay their hunger.

"I never want to go there," she went on; "I should be bewildered and
frightened to death. It is not natural to live like that. God put Adam
and Eve in a garden, and that is how he meant their children to live--in
peace, and looking always on beautiful things. This is my idea of
perfect life. I want no other."

"I thought you once told me that you found it lonely," I said.

"So I did," she answered, innocently, "but that was before you came. Now
I am not lonely any more, and it is perfect--perfect as the night."

Just then the full moon rose above the elbow of the peak, and her
rays stole far and wide down the misty valley, gleaming on the water,
brooding on the plain, searching out the hidden places of the rocks,
wrapping the fair form of nature as in a silver bridal veil through
which her beauty shone mysteriously.

Stella looked down the terraced valley; she turned and looked up at the
scarred face of the golden moon, and then she looked at me. The beauty
of th