vid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which
move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of
aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to
understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried
to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious; but
one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes brood
for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she spoke in
another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know that joy is
not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had never learned
how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but that only
seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There had been one
strange May morning in her life when she went with her husband into the
woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of the place, and
yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of a picture
thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living beauty. The
evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but entrancingly near,
shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of birches in their
first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much under the breeze as
from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green was vivid enough to
lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond it to a brighter vista
still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of violets, springing in the
sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey blue above; it pierced the
sight, awaking new longings and strange memories. It seemed to Letty as
if some invisible finger touched her on the heart and made her pause.
Then David turned, smiling kindly upon her, and she ran to him with a
little cry, and put her arms about his neck.

"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is
it, little child?"

"Oh, it's nothin'!" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!"

The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it meant
as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become
familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the
blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain
at her heart.

Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in
front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to market;
and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast di