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zi8 Woodcraft Maniud for Girls overhead like delicate white-winged yachts drifting on the bhie sea — the far waterless sea of the skies." "Very good sign," she said emphatically. "Very good hick for you — for sure you count seven of them? " "Yes," I assured her. Then I told her how I happened to be at the door of my "wigwam" when I heard a faint whistle sky- ward, an<l looking aloft T saw then' -seven white-feathered beauties sailing southward into the lands ot sun and warmth. I could picture them idling away the winter in some far southern lagoon, while the lazy tropic weeks drifted by as they waited for the call of the North that would come with the early days of April — the sweet clear call of the North that would mean mating time — that would mean days oi i-.v.'sting along the reeds r'"^ rocks of cooler climes, and a long, joyous summer in the far • i i of the upper Pacific Coast. I watched them for many moment'^; their slender white throats were outstretched with the same keen eagerness to reach the southern suns as a finely bred horse displays near the finish of a race. Their shining pinions were like silken sails swelling to the breeze, and lofty as their flight was, I could distinguish a hint of orange from the web of their trailing feet. Their indifference to the city beneath them, their direct though deliberate course, their unblemished whiteness were like a glimpse of some far perfect thing that human hands may not defile. Farther and farther they winged their way, fainter and fainter drifted back- ward their clear whistling, until they were but a bhir against the blue; like an. echo of a whisper their voices still floated be- hind them, then a pearl-gray scarf of cloud enveloped them — they were gone. The klootchman listened like one absorbed. "Very good sign," she repeated, as I concluded my story. " In what way? " I asked. "What is it the palefaces call the one who loves you?" she questioned. Then answering her own query with: "Sweetheart — ^is that not it? Yes? Well, sign is, your sweetheart very true to you. He not got two faces, one for you, another for when he is away from you. He's very true." I laughed sceptically. "A woman's sweetheart is never true to her, but a man'? always is," I remark r 1, %vi-^ a cynicism bom of much observation and some little exf>erience. "You know the big world too well for be happy," she began. "Oh, I am the happiest-hearted woman alive," I hurried to explain. Then, teasingly, "and I'll be happier still if what you say <^ the seven swans is reaUy true."