"While bloomed the magic flowers we scarcely knew
The gold was there. But now their petals strew
Life's pathway."
"And yet the flowers were fair,
Fed by youth's dew and love's enchanted air."

The cool evening air breathing on Joyce's flushed cheeks calms her as
she sets out for the walk that Barbara had encouraged her to take.

It is an evening of great beauty. Earth, sea, and sky seem blended in
one great soft mist, that rising from the ocean down below floats up to
heaven, its heart a pale, vague pink.

The day is almost done, and already shadows are growing around trees and
corners. There is something mystical and strange in the deep murmurs
that come from the nestling woods, the sweet wild coo of the pigeons,
the chirping of innumerable songsters, and now and then the dull hooting
of some blinking owl. Through all, the sad tolling of a chapel bell
away, away in the distance, where the tiny village hangs over the brow
of the rocks that gird the sea.

"While yet the woods were hardly more than brown,
Filled with the stillness of the dying day,
The folds and farms, and faint-green pastures lay,
And bells chimed softly from the gray-walled town;
The dark fields with the corn and poppies sown,
The dull, delicious, dreamy forest way,
The hope of April for the soul of May--
On all of these night's wide, soft wings swept down."

Well, it isn't night yet, however. She can see to tread her way along
the short young grasses down to a favorite nook of hers, where musical
sounds of running streams may be heard, and the rustling of growing
leaves make songs above one's head. Here and there she goes through
brambly ways, where amorous arms from blackberry bushes strive to catch
and hold her, and where star-eyed daisies and buttercups and delicate
faint-hearted primroses peep out to laugh at her discomfiture.

But she escapes from all their snares and goes on her way, her heart so
full of troublous fancies that their many wiles gain from her not so
much as one passing thought.

The pretty, lovely May is just bursting into bloom; its pink blossoms
here and its white blossoms there mingle gloriously, and the perfume of
it fills the silent air.

Joyce picks a branch or two as she goes on her way, and thrusts them
into the bosom of her gown.

And now she has reached the outskirts of the wood, where the river runs,
crossed by a rustic bri