four each morning awoke Annie with their
sylvan opera. The creek that ran just at
the north of the house worked itself into a
fury and blustered along with much noise
toward the great Platte which, miles away,
wallowed in its vast sandy bed. The hills
flushed from brown to yellow, and from
mottled green to intensest emerald, and in
the superb air all the winds of heaven
seemed to meet and frolic with laughter
and song.

Sometimes the mornings were so beauti-
ful that, the men being afield and Annie all
alone, she gave herself up to an ecstasy and
kneeled by the little wooden bench outside
the door, to say, "Father, I thank Thee,"
and then went about her work with all the
poem of nature rhyming itself over and over
in her heart.

It was on such a day as this that Mrs.
Dundy kept her promise and came over to
see if the young housekeeper needed any of
the advice she had promised her. She had
walked, because none of the horses could be
spared. It had got so warm now that the
fire in the kitchen heated the whole house
sufficiently, and Annie had the rooms clean
to exquisiteness. Mrs. Dundy looked about