rilling with awe and reverence for the great
mysteries of life. She wondered again if life would open sometime for her
in some such great way, and if she would ever know better than now what it
meant. Would some one come and love her? Some one whom she could love in
return with all the fervor of her nature?

She had dreamed such dreams before many times, as girls will, while lovers
and future are all in one dreamy, sweet blending of rosy tints and joyous
mystery, but never had they come to her with such vividness as that night.
Perhaps it was because the household had recognized the woman in her for
the first time that evening. Perhaps because the vision she had seen
reflected in her mirror before she left her room that afternoon had opened
the door of the future a little wider than it had ever opened before.

She stood by the gate where the syringa and lilac bushes leaned over and
arched the way, and the honeysuckle climbed about the fence in a wild
pretty way of its own and flung sweetness on the air in vivid, erratic
whiffs.

The sidewalk outside was brick, and whenever she heard footsteps coming
she stepped back into the shadow of the syringa and was hidden from view.
She was in no mood to talk with any one.

She could look out into the dusty road and see dimly the horses and
carryalls as they passed, and recognize an occasional laughing voice of
some village maiden out with her best young man for a ride. Others
strolled along the sidewalk, and fragments of talk floated back. Almost
every one had a word to say about the wedding as they neared the gate, and
if Marcia had been in another mood it would have been interesting and
gratifying to her pride. Every one had a good word for Kate, though many
disapproved of her in a general way for principle's sake.

Hanford Weston passed, with long, slouching gait, hands in his trousers
pockets, and a frightened, hasty, sideways glance toward the lights of the
house beyond. He would have gone in boldly to call if he had dared, and
told Marcia that he had done her bidding and now wanted a reward, but John
Middleton had joined him at the corner and he dared not make the attempt.
John would have done it in a minute if he had wished. He was brazen by
nature, but Hanford knew that he would as readily laugh at another for
doing it. Hanford shrank from a laugh more than from the cannon's mouth,
so he slouched on, not knowing that his goddess held her breath behind a
lilac bush not