things which
bind you could bind no more? And if in fancy you sometimes let
yourself drift into that other country, am I with you there? Do you
ever have a picture of our venturing together into the unknown
ways--daring--suffering--rejoicing--_growing_? Sometimes sunshine and
sometimes storm--but always open country and everwidening sky-line. Oh
Katie--how splendid it might be!"

She read and re-read it, dreaming and picturing. And at length there
settled upon her that stillness, that pause before life's wonder and
mystery. Her eyes were deep. The light that makes life noble glorified
her tender face.

She broke from it at last to look for a card they had there giving dates
of sailings.

CHAPTER XXXVII

They would get in late that afternoon. Off on the horizon was a hazy mass
which held the United States of America, as sometimes the haze of a dream
may hold a mighty truth.

Katie and Mrs. Prescott were having a brisk walk on deck. They paused and
peered off at that mist out of which New York must soon shape itself.

"Just off yonder's your country, Katie," the older woman was saying.
"Soon you'll see the flag flying over Governor's Island. Will it make
you thrill?"

"It always has," replied Katie.

Mrs. Prescott stole a keen look at her, seeing that she was not answered.
They had had some strange talks on that homeward trip, talks to stir in
the older woman's mind vague apprehensions for the daughter of her old
friend. It did not seem to Mrs. Prescott what she called "best" that a
woman--and particularly an unmarried one--should be doing as much
thinking as Katie seemed to be doing. She wished Katie would not read
such strange books; she was sure Walt Whitman, for one, could not be a
good influence. What would happen to the world if the women of Katie's
class were to--let down the bars, she vaguely and uneasily thought it.
And she was too fond of Katie to want her to venture out of shelter.

"Well it ought to, Katie dear. I don't know who has the right to
thrill to it, if you haven't. Doesn't it make you think of those sturdy
forefathers of yours who came to it long ago, when it was an unknown
land, and braved dangers for it? Your people have always fought for it,
Katie. There would be no country had not such lives as theirs been
given to it."

Katie was peering off at the faint outlines which one moment seemed
discernible in the mist and the next seemed but a phantom of the
imagination, as the tr