A HAPPY WORLD 175 



busy and happy inhabitants going about in 

 their work of home-making, or later, rearing 

 their little families, bathing in the brooks 

 that came down the slopes, taking their daily 

 food from an ever-spread table and filling 

 the air with loud, joyous shouts, and cries and 

 calls of infinite variety. 



As " the twilight gathered " one after an- 

 other blessed voice was hushed. Then came 

 the picture of the beautiful birds retiring to 

 their innocent sleep, any twig in their fair 

 leafy world a comfortable bed, every feathery 

 shoulder a sweet pillow, with no roofs to 

 shield from the weather, no bolts or bars to 

 protect, happy and peaceful and fearless, as I 

 earnestly believe, till something of the rest- 

 fulness and trust of these little lives passed 

 into the soul of their lover. 



Then, as darkness came on, the place of 

 these woodlanders was taken by others, who 

 love the " high fastidious night." The whip- 

 poorwill sent his hearty greeting to the world ; 

 the slanderously named screech-owl sounded 

 his quavering song, and his larger brother 

 made the woods ring with his happy " hoot," 

 melancholy only because we so interpret it, 



