traw hat. A face full of a waiting look, not
hopeful nor expectant, simply unsettled and watchful, yet fresh, and
rounded with the dimples and childlike curves of eighteen. Whatever of
yearning and unrest the years had brought lingered only about the
shadowy eyes and fine mouth. There were no haggard nor worn outlines,
and a baby's skin could not have been softer and finer.

At her feet crisped the shining ripples of the incoming tide. Far
beyond, calm and burnished, stretched the summer sea into the dreamy
distance, where the white noon sky, stricken through with intensest
light and heat, dropped down a palpitating arch to meet it. And in all
the dazzle of blue and white and silver and bare shining gray, she
stood, a straight, slender, haughty little figure, as indefinite of
color as all the rest; all but a narrow strip of scarlet at her throat,
falling in a flaming line to her waist. The shimmering atmosphere seemed
to pant about her; and through the high noon, over the still waters and
sleeping shore, hummed the peering strains of a weird little song. She
was singing softly:

'For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner 'tis over the sooner to sleep.'

In the long parlor, the leaf ghosts that had all day long been flitting
in, were darkening with the sunset and filling the room with twilight
dimness. Deep in a crimson couch and haloed with the last brightness,
lay the long, white outlines of a reclining figure. A handful of Japan
lilies burned against the pure drapery, and another handful of tea
violets lay crushed in the fleecy handkerchief on the floor. Against the
cushions the exquisite contour of the sleeping face showed plainly.
Coolest quiet sphered the whole figure; not a suggestion of anything but
slowest calm grace disturbed its repose. But with the hushing rustle of
leaves with the summer murmur flowing in, seemed to come also the deep
monotone of the waves, when this inanimate statue was striking out at
his side through the rattle and rush of the surf, the wide eyes filled
with fierce light, the whole face fixed and stern with the strain of
heart muscle, toward the helpless shape shooting out on the undertow. He
had not seen her after, and, coming to seek her that night with words of
compliment and thanks, he was met by this white vision that had absorbed
all the fire and force of the afternoon into its blankness.

A depot platform--long afternoon shadows fell over the pretty country
stat