The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the tender leaves of the young
shoots, and turning from time to time to regard her offspring. The
fawn had taken his morning meal, and now lay curled up on a bed of
moss, watching contentedly, with his large, soft brown eyes, every
movement of his mother. The great eyes followed her with an alert
entreaty; and, if the mother stepped a pace or two farther away in
feeding, the fawn made a half movement, as if to rise and follow her.
You see, she was his sole dependence in all the world. But he was
quickly reassured when she turned her gaze on him; and if, in alarm,
he uttered a plaintive cry, she bounded to him at once, and, with
every demonstration of affection, licked his mottled skin till it
shone again.

It was a pretty picture,--maternal love on the one part, and happy
trust on the other. The doe was a beauty, and would have been so
considered anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun
that day shone on,--slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body,
and aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent,
affectionate eyes. How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught
grace in every movement! What a charming pose when she lifted her
head, and turned it to regard her child! You would have had a
companion picture if you had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby
kicking about among the dry pine-needles on a ledge above the Au
Sable, in the valley below, while its young mother sat near, with an
easel before her, touching in the color of a reluctant landscape,
giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of the Twin Mountains,
and bestowing every third glance upon the laughing boy,--art in its
infancy.

The doe lifted her head a little with a quick motion, and turned her