ned and rebellious heart a more innocent passion stirred and
awoke--the tender pleasure I have always found in seeking out those shy
people of the forest, the wild blossoms--a harmless pleasure, for it is
ever my habit to leave them undisturbed upon their stalks.

Deeper in the forest pink moccasin-flowers bloomed among rocks, and the
air was tinctured with a honeyed smell from the spiked orchis cradled in
its sheltering leaf under the hemlock shade.

Once, as I crossed a marshy place, about me floated a violet perfume,
and I was at a loss to find its source until I espied a single purple
blossom of the Arethusa bedded in sturdy thickets of rose-azalea,
faintly spicy, and all humming with the wings of plundering bees.

Underfoot my shoes brushed through spikenard, and fell silently on
carpets of moss-pinks, and once I saw a matted bed of late Mayflower,
and the forest dusk grew sweeter and sweeter, saturating all the
woodland, until each breath I drew seemed to intoxicate.

Spring languor was in earth and sky, and in my bones, too; yet, through
this Northern forest ever and anon came faint reminders of receding
snows, melting beyond the Canadas--delicate zephyrs, tinctured with the
far scent of frost, flavoring the sun's balm at moments with a
sharper essence.

Now traversing a ferny space edged in with sweetbrier, a breeze
accompanied me, caressing neck and hair, stirring a sudden warmth upon
my cheek like a breathless maid close beside me, whispering.

Then through the rustle of leafy depths I heard the stream's laughter,
very far away, and I turned to the left across the moss, walking more
swiftly till I came to the log-bridge where the road crosses. Below me
leaped the stream, deep in its ravine of slate, roaring over the dam
above the rocky gorge only to flow out again between the ledge and the
stone foundations of the grist-mill opposite. Down into the ravine and
under the dam I climbed, using the mossy steps that nature had cut in
the slate, and found a rock to sit on where the spray from the dam could
not drench me. And here I baited my hook and cast out, so that the
swirling water might carry my lure under the mill's foundations, where
Ruyven said big, dusky trout most often lurked.

But I am no fisherman, and it gives me no pleasure to drag a finny
creature from its element and see its poor mouth gasp and its eyes glaze
and the fiery dots on its quivering sides grow dimmer. So when a sly
trout snatched