looked into the
night. For the first time in her life, the mystery of existence really
dawned upon her. She gazed with a new awe at the starry sky. She thought
of that Being of whom David had spoken. Questions which had never before
occurred to her knocked at the door of her mind and imperatively
demanded an answer. "Who am I? Whence did I come? For what was I
created? Whither am I going?" she asked herself again and again with
profound astonishment at the newness of these questions and her
inability to answer them.

For a long time she sat in the light of the moon, and reflected on these
mysteries with all the power of her untutored mind. But that power was
soon exhausted, and vague, chaotic, abstract conceptions gave place to a
definite image which had been eternally impressed upon her inward eyes.
It was the figure of the young Quaker, idealized by the imagination of
an ardent and emotional woman whose heart had been thrilled for the
first time.

She began timidly to ask herself what was the meaning of those feelings
which this stranger had awakened in her bosom. She knew that they were
different from those which her husband inspired; but how different, she
did not know. They filled her with a sort of ecstasy, and she gave
herself up to them. Exhausted at last by these vivid thoughts and
emotions, she rested her head upon her arms across the window sill and
fell asleep. It must have been that the young Quaker followed her into
the land of dreams, for when her husband aroused her at midnight a faint
flush could be seen by the light of the moon on those rounded cheeks.

There are all the elements of a tragedy in the heart of a woman who has
never felt the emotions of religion or of love until she is married!

CHAPTER V.

THE LIGHT THAT LIES

"Oh! why did God create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not till the world at once
With men as angels, without feminine?"

--Paradise Lost.

On the following morning the preacher-plowman was afield at break of
day. The horses, refreshed and rested by food and sleep, dragged the
gleaming plowshare through the heavy sod as if it were light snow, and
the farmer exulted behind them.

That universal life which coursed through all the various forms of being
around him, bounded in tides through his own veins. The fresh morning
air, the tender light of dawning day, the odors of plants and songs of
birds, filled h