gazed at it. But for the first time in her life Miss Vesta was not
glad to see Melody. The child began to sing, and the woman listened
for the words, with a vague trouble darkening over her perturbed
spirit as a thunder-cloud comes blackening a gray sky, filling it with
angry mutterings, with quick flashes. What if the child should sing
the wrong words, she thought! What were the wrong words, and how
should she know whether they were of God or the Devil?

It was an old song that Melody was singing; she knew few others,
indeed,--only the last verse of an old song, which Vesta Dale had
heard all her life, and had never thought much about, save that it was
a good song, one of the kind Rejoice liked.

"There's a place that is better than this, Robin Ruff,
And I hope in my heart you'll go there;
Where the poor man's as great,
Though he hath no estate,
Ay, as though he'd a thousand a year, Robin Ruff,
As though he'd a thousand a year'"

"So you see," said Melody to the children, as they paced along, "it
doesn't make any real difference whether we have things or don't have
them. It's inside that one has to be happy; one can't be happy from
the outside, ever. I should think it would be harder if one had lots
of things that one must think about, and take care of, and perhaps
worry over. I often am so glad I haven't many things."

They passed on, going down into the little meadow where the sweet
rushes grew, for Melody knew that no child could stay cross when it
had sweet rushes to play with; and Miss Vesta turned to the stranger