ld be on a desert
island. And in getting to think that way, in getting so far from what
you once were, a person seems to squeeze a good many years into a few
weeks." She looked sideways at him, the stones dropping from a
slanting palm. "Do you understand me?"

He nodded:

"'When I was a child I thought as a child--now I have put away childish
things.' Is that it?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Then you wouldn't like to go back to the old life?"

She scattered the stones with an impatient gesture:

"I couldn't. I'd hate it. I wouldn't squeeze back into the same
shape. I'd be all cramped and crowded up. You see every day out here
I've been growing wider and wider," she stretched her arms to their
length, "widening out to fit these huge, enormous places."

"The new life will be wide enough for you. You'll grow like a tree, a
beautiful, tall, straight tree that has plenty of room for its branches
to spread and plenty of sun and air to nourish it. There'll be no
crowding or cramping out there. It's good to know you'll be happy in
California. In the beginning I had fears."

She picked up a stone and with its pointed edge drew lines on the dust
which seemed to interest her, for she followed them with intent eyes,
not answering. He waited for a moment, then said with an undernote of
pleading in his voice, "You think you will be happy, dearie?"

"I--I--don't--know," she stammered. "Nobody can tell. We're not there
yet."

"I can tell." He raised himself on his elbow to watch her face. She
knew that he expected to see the maiden's bashful happiness upon it,
and the difference between his fond imaginings and the actual facts
sickened her with an intolerable sense of deception. She could never
tell him, never strike out of him his glad conviction of her
contentment.

"We're going back to the Golden Age, you and I, and David. We'll live
as we want, not the way other people want us to. When we get to
California we'll build a house somewhere by a river and we'll plant our
seeds and have vines growing over it and a garden in the front, and
Daddy John will break Julia's spirit and harness her to the plow. Then
when the house gets too small--houses have a way of doing that--I'll
build a little cabin by the edge of the river, and you and David will
have the house to yourselves where the old, white-headed doctor won't
be in the way."

He smiled for the joy of his picture, and she turned her head from him,
seeing t