Humble and submissive, she did not attempt to break in upon a reverie she could not help but feel had little kindliness to herself.

As the fire snapped and sparkled, she pillowed her head upon a root, and lay still to watch it.
It rose and fell, and dying away at times to a mere lurid glow, and again, agitated by some breath scarcely perceptible to them, quickening into a roaring flame.

When only the embers remained, a dead silence filled the wood.

Then the first breath of morning moved the tangled canopy above, and a dozen tiny sprays and needles detached from the interlocked boughs winged their soft way noiselessly to the earth.

A few fell upon the prostrate woman like a gentle benediction, and she slept.