sang--Tweet! tweet! chirrup! throstle! Spring! Spring! Spring!--and
they twittered from tree to tree, and shook the bare twigs with
melody; whilst a single blackbird sitting still upon a bough below,
sang "Life!" "Life!" "Life!" with the loudest pipe of his throat,
because on such a day it was happiness only to be alive.

It was like a wonderful fairy-tale, to which Ida listened with clasped
hands.

Presently another song came from the wood: it was a hymn sung by
children's voices, such as one often hears carolled by a troop of
little urchins coming home from school. The words fell familiarly on
Ida's ears:

"Quite through the streets with silver sound,
The flood of life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The wood of life doth grow.

"Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.

"There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the Angels sit,
And evermore do sing."

Here the little chorus broke off, and the children came pouring out of