5/21 A blue heron rose among the reeds, looked at him quietly, and then hid behind a tree. A muskrat swam shoreward from his track, with only his nose above water. A deer, feeding among the lily-pads, looked up, snorted, and then wheeled and plunged into the woods. All these things he saw, but they made no more impression upon his memory than is left upon the canvas by the projected images of a magic-lantern. His mind was occupied by his scheme, which had never seemed so serious a matter as when he had started upon its fulfilment. |