under the blue sky, against a screen of mountains.

Harz and Christian sat behind the others. He seemed so intent on the
play that she did not speak, but watched his face, rigid with a kind of
cold excitement; he seemed to be transported by the life passing before
them. Something of his feeling seized on her; when the play was over she
too was trembling. In pushing their way out they became separated from
the others.

"There's a short cut to the station here," said Christian; "let's go
this way."

The path rose a little; a narrow stream crept alongside the meadow, and
the hedge was spangled with wild roses. Christian kept glancing shyly
at the painter. Since their meeting on the river wall her thoughts had
never been at rest. This stranger, with his keen face, insistent eyes,
and ceaseless energy, had roused a strange feeling in her; his words had
put shape to something in her not yet expressed. She stood aside at a
stile to make way for some peasant boys, dusty and rough-haired, who
sang and whistled as they went by.

"I was like those boys once," said Harz.

Christian turned to him quickly. "Ah! that was why you felt the play, so
much."

"It's my country up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked
after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter.
They used to call me a 'black sheep,' a 'loafer' in my village."

"Why?"

"Ah! why? I worked as hard as any of them. But I wanted to get away. Do
you think I could have stayed there all my life?"

Christian's eyes grew eager.

"If people don't understand what it is you want to do, they always call
you a loafer!" muttered Harz.

"But you did what you meant to do in spite of them," Christian said.

For herself it was so hard to finish or decide. When in the old days
she told Greta stories, the latter, whose instinct was always for the
definite, would say: "And what came at the end, Chris? Do finish it
this morning!" but Christian never could. Her thoughts were deep, vague,
dreamy, invaded by both sides of every question. Whatever she did, her
needlework, her verse-making, her painting, all had its charm; but
it was not always what it was intended for at the beginning. Nicholas
Treffry had once said of her: "When Chris starts out to make a hat, it
may turn out an altar-cloth, but you may bet it won't be a hat." It was
her instinct to look for what things meant; and this took more than all
her time. She knew herself better than most gir