ophie found
themselves on the hill which rose up in front of the house, above the
road, bound on a hunt for autumn leaves. They were alone. Bressant's
time for coming was still an hour distant. A few nights before there had
been a frost, which had inspired a rainbow soul into the woods; and the
glory of the golden and crimson leaves made it imperatively necessary
that they should be gathered and allowed to illuminate the dusky
interior of the Parsonage.

Since Cornelia's return home, the sisters had not been so much together
as formerly. Sophie had observed it, and secretly blamed herself: she
allowed Bressant to monopolize her--left Cornelia out in the cold--was
selfish and thoughtless just because she was happy--and so forth: taking
herself severely to task, and resolving to amend her behavior forthwith.
But there seemed to be some difficulty in the way of consummating her
best intentions.

Cornelia was no longer so easily to be come at; she did not volunteer
herself now in the liberal, joyous way she used to do; did not, in fact,
appear half so ready to do her share in the work of reconstruction. It
began to force itself upon Sophie that the edifice of their former
relations was not lightly to be rebuilt; and the growth of this
conviction occasioned her to mar her ordinarily serene and justly
harmonized existence with sundry little fits of crying and other
mournful indulgences.

As for Cornelia, if she noticed the estrangement at all, she did not
allow it to occasion her any anxiety. Jealousy and discontent are more
self-absorbing passions than love, and they closed her eyes to whatever
they did not involve. Yet the effect of the estrangement was more
hurtful upon her than upon Sophie; for never had her pure-minded
sister's influence been so needful to her as now, when the very nature
of the malady forbade its being so relieved.

But this afternoon it had so happened that they found themselves
together, on the hill. Each had filled a basket with the most brilliant,
or harmonious, or vividly contrasted colors they could find. They had
emerged from the wood into the clear autumn sunshine which rested upon
the hill-side, and sat down upon a gray knee of rock, encased with crisp
gray and black lichens. Below lay the Parsonage, with its
weather-blackened, shingled roof, and the garden, full of shrubbery,
intersected by winding paths, the fountain in the centre. The stony road
wound around the spur of the hill, and wa