we crawled under our blankets and lay on the sweet, clean pine.  We were both perfectly worn out, but we could not sleep.  There seemed to be hundreds of different noises of the storm, for there are so many canons, so many crooks and turns, and the great forest too.  The wind was shrieking, howling, and roaring all at once.  A deep boom announced the fall of some giant of the forest.  I finally dozed off even in that terrible din, but Zebbie was not so frenzied as he had been.  He was playing “Annie Laurie,” and that song has always been a favorite of mine.  The storm began gradually to die away and “Annie Laurie” sounded so beautiful.  I was thinking of Pauline and, I know, to Zebbie, Annie Laurie and Pauline Gorley are one and the same.

I knew no more until I heard Zebbie call out, “Ho, you sleepy-heads, it’s day.”  Mrs. O’Shaughnessy turned over and said she was still sleepy.  My former visit had taught me what beauty the early morning would spread before me, so I dressed hastily and went outdoors.  Zebbie called me to go for a little walk.  The amber light of the new day was chasing the violet and amethyst shadows down the canons.  It was all more beautiful than I can tell you.  On one side the canon-walls were almost straight up.  It looked as if we might step off into a very world of mountains.  Soon Old Baldy wore a crown of gleaming gold.  The sun was up.  We walked on and soon came to a brook.  We were washing our faces in its icy waters when we heard twigs breaking, so we stood perfectly still.  From out the undergrowth of birch and willows came a deer with two fawns.  They stopped to drink, and nibbled the bushes.  But soon they scented strangers, and, looking about with their beautiful, startled eyes, they saw us and away they went like the wind.  We saw many great trees uptorn by the storm.  High up on the cliffs Zebbie showed me where the eagles built every year....  We turned homeward and sat down upon the trunk of a fallen pine to rest and take another look at the magnificent view.  Zebbie was silent, but presently he threw a handful of pebbles down the canon wall.  “I am not sorry Pauline is dead.  I have never shed a tear.  I know you think that is odd, but I have never wanted to mourn.  I am glad that it is as it is.  I am happy and at peace because I know she is mine.  The little breeze is Pauline’s own voice; she had a little caressing way just like the gentlest breeze when it stirs your hair.  There is something in everything that brings back Pauline:  the beauty of the morning, the song of a bird or the flash of its wings.  The flowers look like she did.  So I have not lost her, she is mine more than ever.  I have always felt so, but was never quite sure until I went back and saw where they laid her.  I know people think I am crazy, but I don’t care for that.  I shall not hate to die.  When you get to be as old as I am, child, everything will have a new meaning to you.”

At last we slowly walked back to the cabin, and at breakfast Zebbie told of the damage the storm had done.  He was so common-place that no one ever would have guessed his strange fancy....