he snow disappeared she went out to the
main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came she was wont
to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the brook, past Jasper
Dale's garden, and out through his lane. And one day, as she went by,
Jasper Dale was working in his garden.

He was on his knees in a corner, setting out a bunch of roots--an
unsightly little tangle of rainbow possibilities. It was a still spring
morning; the world was green with young leaves; a little wind blew down
from the pines and lost itself willingly among the budding delights of
the garden. The grass opened eyes of blue violets. The sky was high
and cloudless, turquoise-blue, shading off into milkiness on the far
horizons. Birds were singing along the brook valley. Rollicking robins
were whistling joyously in the pines. Jasper Dale's heart was filled to
over-flowing with a realization of all the virgin loveliness around him;
the feeling in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer. At this moment
he looked up and saw Alice Reade.

She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a great pine
tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his presence, but
at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far corner, with all her
delight in it outblossoming freely in her face. For a moment Jasper Dale
believed that his dream love had taken visible form before him. She was
like--so like; not in feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring--the
grace of a slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and
wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all, she
was like her in expression--in the subtle revelation of personality
exhaling from her like perfume from a flower. It was as if his own had
come to him at last and his whole soul suddenly leaped out to meet and
welcome her.

Then her eyes fell upon him and the spell was broken. Jasper remained
kneeling mutely there, shy man once more, crimson with blushes, a
strange, almost pitiful creature in his abject confusion. A little smile
flickered about the delicate corners of her mouth, but she turned and
walked swiftly away down the lane.

Jasper looked after her with a new, painful sense of loss and
loveliness. It had been agony to feel her conscious eyes upon him, but
he realized now that there had been a strange sweetness in it, too. It
was still greater pain to watch her going from him.

He thought she must be the new music teacher but he did not