d orchids. Celia alone in all the
country-side knew where any were to be found. Her grandmother had
taken her as a child to the solitary place in the woods, and it had
been her fancy to preserve the secret, but for one exception or two.
The donor of Beech had visited the fairy recess with her, and the odor
of it now had power to evoke past words and scenes almost more than
anything left of that poor romance. The thoughts she had there thought
first seemed year after year to be still lying in wait for her there.
It was her habit to gather the flowers with discretion and reverence,
distributing them as if they had been so much gold. Any wild orchid
seen in a village sitting-room was sure to be noticed with the remark,
"I see you've had a call from Miss Compton," and it seemed agreed that
one should expect them only from her hand. Celia, seeking the hushed
green haunt one summer morning, her head as always on those
pilgrimages lost in its old dream, upon reaching the dell where her
eyes looked for sparks of pink against the lace of ferns, was startled
by the sight of Judith, solid and ample. One hand grasped a bunch of
orchids, the other was still busily harvesting. What she saw in
Celia's face as Celia recognized her, Judith alone could tell. But
instead of anything their immediately preceding intercourse could have
led Celia to look for, Judith went to her quickly, and, holding out
the flowers for her to take, blurted forth, "It's a burning shame!...
Of course they belong to you, and I'd no business...." But Celia
looked at her with eyes of judgment, and, with a gesture of utter
rejection, turned. Judith scattered her nosegay angrily upon the
earth, and the two women, as fast as ever they could, widened the
distance between them.

After that, each according to her nature entertained her aversion. In
Celia the act consisted in as perfect an exclusion from her thoughts
of the other, now altogether outside the pale of consideration, as her
will could compass. She refused to be concerned with such ugliness, or
have her life vulgarized by the sentiments which befitted it. In
Judith it formed an undercurrent of excitement, never quite below
consciousness, and at the root of many an action of hers which from
the surface would have seemed to have no relation with it. Other
factors in Judith's life there were combining with her sense of
Celia's disesteem and her revolt against it and requital of hatred, to
give her character a t