spirit found no relief for its emotions; for it was dumb. To the linnet
its flight, to the thrush its song; but she had neither flight nor
song. Yet the tongueless thrush is a thrush still, and has golden music
in its heart. The caged linnet may sit moping, but her soul knows the
dip and rise of flight on an everlasting May morning.

All the things she felt and could not say, all the stored honey, the
black hatred, the wistful homesickness for the unfenced wild--all that
other women would have put into their prayers, she gave to Hazel. The
whole force of her wayward heart flowed into the softly beating heart
of her baby. It was as if she passionately flung the life she did not
value into the arms of her child.

When Hazel was fourteen she died, leaving her treasure--an old, dirty,
partially illegible manuscript-book of spells and charms and other
gipsy lore--to her daughter.

Her one request was that she might be buried in the Callow under the
yellow larch needles, and not in a churchyard. Abel Woodus did as she
asked, and was regarded askance by most of the community for not
burying her in Chrissen-ground. But this did not trouble him. He had
his harp still, and while he had that he needed no other friend. It had
been his absorption in his music that had prevented him understanding
his wife, and in the early days of their marriage she had been wildly
jealous of the tall gilt harp with its faded felt cover that stood in
the corner of the living-room. Then her jealousy changed to love of it,
and her one desire was to be able to draw music from its plaintive
strings. She could never master even the rudiments of music, but she
would sit on rainy evenings when Abel was away and run her thin hands
over the strings with a despairing passion of grieving love. Yet she