lace and unresponsive, and
the routine is tame. Out of such a whirl of new experiences to
return and find that nothing has happened; that the old duties and
responsibilities are waiting! Margaret had eagerly leaped from the
carriage to throw herself into her aunt's arms-what a sweet welcome it
is, that of kin!--and yet almost before the greeting was over she felt
alone. There was that in the affectionate calmness of Miss Forsythe that
seemed to chill the glow and fever of passion in her new world. And she
had nothing to tell. Everything had changed, and she must behave as if
nothing had happened. She must take up her old life--the interests of
the neighborhood. Even the little circle of people she loved appeared
distant from her at the moment; impossible it seemed to bring them into
the rushing current of her life. Their joy in getting her back again she
could not doubt, nor the personal affection with which she was welcomed.
But was the New England atmosphere a little cold? What was the flavor
she missed in it all? The next day a letter came. The excuse for it was
the return of a fan which Mr. Henderson had carried off in his pocket
from the opera. What a wonderful letter it was--his handwriting, the
first note from him! Miss Forsythe saw in it only politeness. For
Margaret it outweighed the town of Brandon. It lay in her lap as she
sat at her chamber window looking out over the landscape, which was
beginning to be flushed with a pale green. There was a robin on the
lawn, and a blackbird singing in the pine. "Go not, happy day," she
said, with tears in her eyes. She took up the brief letter and read it
again. Was he really hers, "truly"? And she answered the letter, swiftly
and with no hesitation, but with a throbbing heart. It was a civil
acknowledgment; that was all. Henderson might have lead it aloud in the
Exchange. But what color, what charming turns of expression, what
of herself, had the girl put into it, that gave him such a thrill of
pleasure when he read it? What secret power has a woman to make a common
phrase so glow with her very self?

Here was something in her life that was her own, a secret, a hope,
and yet a tremulous anticipation to be guarded almost from herself. It
colored everything; it was always, whatever she was doing or saying,
present, like an air that one unconsciously hums for days after it has
caught his fancy. Blessed be the capacity of being fond and foolish! If
that letter was under her