A jay screamed somewhere deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig to twig, cheeping inquiringly.
She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to his low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness and forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing the great out-world 'twixt sky and earth.

Sunlight and shadows moving, speech and silence, waxed and waned.

A listless contentment lay warm upon her, weighting the heavy white lids.

The blue of her eyes was very dark now--almost purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws turn the blue to violet.
"Did you ever hear of the 'Lesser Children' ?" she asked.

"Listen then: "'Multitudes, multitudes, under the moon they stirred! The weakerbrothers of our earthly breed; All came about my head and at my feet A thousand thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead: Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute! And I beheld and saw them one by one Pass, and become as nothing in the night.' "Do you know what it means?
"'Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music down--' "Do you understand ?" she asked, smiling.
"'Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird!'" She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: "Do you know that plea for mercy on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season opens for your pleasure, Mr.Siward ?" "Is it a woodland sermon ?" he inquired, too politely.
"The poem?
No; it is the case for the prosecution.