"All right, Maggie. You can show Mrs. Davenport and the children
around the house."

Marian was willing to go with her mother, but Beth hung back.

"I don't care for the house. I want to see the front yard and river.
May I go, papa?"

"If you'll come back in half an hour, you may go."

"All right, papa," and Beth was off like a flash around the corner of
the house. She was impatient to see everything in that half hour. She
felt that she needed a thousand eyes. The trees bewildered her. There
were so many varieties she had never seen before--magnolias with their
wonderful glossy foliage; bamboos with their tropical stalks covered
with luxuriant green; pomegranates; live-oaks and water-oaks; the wild
olive with its feathery white blossoms, and many others.

The moss on the oaks swayed back and forth, seeming to murmur, "Beth,
these trees are the best of playfellows. Climb up here with us. We'll
have great fun," but she would not heed them. There was too much to
see.

All of a sudden, she stopped perfectly still. She thought there must
be a fairy up in one of the trees with the most wonderful voice she had
ever heard. Such singing, she thought, was too sweet to be human.

She looked up and beheld a bird of medium size, and of plain plumage.
It cocked its little head to one side, and eyed the child as if it knew
no fear. It sang on undisturbed.