cely one bough of pink bloom,
among others shaggy with gray moss like the beard of age.

Then, also, the lane still remained which had stretched, in days gone
by, from the northward of the old house to the highway. The lane had
divided the fields of the old landowners, and had been the
thoroughfare for the dwellers in the house when they went to meeting
and to mill.

The Hautvilles often used it in the summer-time for a short-cut to
the village. Eugene went along this foot-path, which was in its way a
little humble track of history of simple village life, passed the
site of the house, and then struck into the lane. It stretched before
him like a shaft of green light. The afternoon sun shone through
young willow-leaves, transparent like green glass. Low overhead hung
rosy tassels from out-reaching boughs of maples. Between the trees,
the flowering alders seemed gleaming out of sight before him like the
white skirts of maidens. Here and there the ground was blue with
violets. Eugene picked some half mechanically, as he went along, and
made a little nosegay, with some sprigs of alder. He was half through
the lane, and had just emerged from a clump of alders, when he saw
Dorothy Fair coming. She gave a start when she saw him appear with a
great jostling of white branches, and made as if she would have fled;
then she held up her head with gentle dignity and advanced, lifting
her lady-skirts with dainty fingers on either side. Mistress Dorothy,
being weary of fine needle-work upon her bridal linen, had come out a
little way to take the air, and naturally enough had chosen for her
walk this sweet lane, which opened upon the highway a stone's-throw
below her house.

If Eugene Hautville, at sight of her, felt a quaking of his spirit,
and would also fain have fled, he made no sign, but walked on proudly
like a prince, with a bold yet graceful swing of his stalwart
shoulders. And when he and Dorothy met, he bowed low before her, and
she courtesied and he bade her good-day quite clearly, and she
murmured a response with pretty, prim lips; and they would have
passed on had not both, as if constrained by hands of force upon
their necks, raised their faces and looked of a sudden into each
other eyes with that same old look which they had exchanged in the
meeting-house long ago.

Dorothy Fair wore on that day a thin wool gown of a mottled blue
color like a dapple of spring violets. It was laid across her bosom
in smooth plaits, a