This same slighted, forgotten, uncomprehended, but still foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be bending over her frightened and listening ear with vague but thrilling murmurings of freedom and independence.

She felt her heart expand with its wholesome breath, her soul fill with its sustaining truth.
She felt-- What was that?
An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:-- "Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike, I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike.".

.

.
She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless singer had risen before her.
"I knew when to bet, and get up and get--" "Hush! D--n it all.

Don't you hear ?" There was the sound of hurried whispers, a "No" and "Yes," and then a dead silence.
Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a buckeye.