alked along rapidly under the vast canopy of stars, about
which she presently began to have a singular impression. She felt as
if they were being augmented, swelled as if by constantly oncoming
legions of light from the space beyond space, and as if her little
space of individuality, her tiny foothold of creation, was being
constantly narrowed by them.

"I never saw so many stars," she said to herself. She looked with
wonder at the Milky Way, which was like a zone of diamond dust.
Suddenly a mighty conviction of God, which was like the blazing
forth of a new star, was in her soul. Ellen was not in a sense
religious, and had never united with the Congregational Church,
which she had always attended with her parents; she had never been
responsive to efforts made towards her so-called conversion, but all
at once, under the stars that night, she told herself with an
absolute certainty of the truth of it. "There is something beyond
everything, beyond the stars, and beyond all poor men, and beyond
me, which is enough for all needs. We shall have our portion in the
end."

She had been feeling discouraged lately, although she would not own
it even to herself. She saw Robert but seldom, and her aunt was no
better. She often wondered if there could be anything before her but
that one track of drudgery for daily bread upon which she had set
out. She wondered if she ought not to say positively to Robert that
there must be no thought of anything between them in the future. She
wondered if she were not wronging him. Once or twice she had seen
him riding with Miss Hemingway, and thought that, after all, that
was a girl better suited to him, and perhaps if he had no hope
whatever of her he might turn to the other to his own advantage. But
to-night, with the clear stimulus of the frost in her lungs, and her
eyes and soul dazzled with the multiplicity of stars, she began to
have a great impetus of courage, like a soldier on the morning of
battle. She felt as if she could fight for her joy and the joy of
others, and victory would in the end be certain; that the chances of
victory ran to infinity, and could not be measured.

However, all the while, in spite of her stimulation of spirits,
there was that vague sense of excitement, as over some impending
crisis. That she could not throw off. Suddenly she found herself
searching the road ahead of her, and often turning at the fancied
sound of a footstep. She began to wish that her father h