Seated as he was, on a low camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in the woods and hills.

As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the foot of the sheltering bank.

Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native haunts.
The man kept very still.

Presently, when the girl had moved so that he could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.
Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself, again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come.

For a while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture; but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there.