for it was the last bright one of her life, the last that pretty Martha
ever spent at the White Farm.... And now here was the swallow again....
"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings
shall tell the matter." Miss Vilda looked on the book and tried to
follow the hymn; but passages of Scripture flocked into her head in
place of good Dr. Watts's verses, and when the little melodeon played
the interludes she could only hear:--

"Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house and the swallow a nest where
she may lay her young, even Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my
God."

"As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from
his place."

"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head."

And then the text fell on her bewildered ears, and roused her from one
reverie to plunge her in another. It was chosen, as it chanced, from the
First Epistle of Timothy, chapter first, verse fifth: "Now the end of
the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart."

"That means the Missionary Society," said Miss Vilda to her conscience,
doggedly; but she knew better. The parson, the text,--or was it the
bird?--had brought the message; but for the moment she did not lend the
hearing ear or the understanding heart.