her hands folded, until the others were ready to
go to bed. She wrapped a hot brick in red flannel for each of them, put
out the lamp, and followed them up-stairs. Rejoicing in the shelter
afforded by a closed door, she sat in the dark, shivering a little,
until sounds suggestive of deep slumber came from the two rooms beyond.

Then she lighted the two candles that Alden Marsh had given her, and
hurriedly undressed, pausing only to make a wry face at her unbleached
muslin nightgown, entirely without trimming. She brushed her hair with a
worn brush, braided it, tied it with a bit of shoestring, and climbed
into bed.

After assuring herself of the best light possible, she unwrapped the
little red book he had given her a few days before, and began to read,
eagerly, one of the two wonderful sonnet sequences of which the English
language boasts:

"Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;"

[Sidenote: Upon the Heights]

As by magic, the cares of the common day slipped away from her and her
spirit began to breathe. Upon the heights she walked firmly now, and as
surely as though she felt the hills themselves beneath her feet.

"Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
Cried on him and the bonds of birth were burst."

And again:

"Lo! it is done. Above the enthroning threat
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,
The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
That in all years (Oh, love, thy gift is this!)
They that would look on her must come to me."

The divine melody of the words stirred her to the depths of her soul.
Hunger and thirst ran riot in her blood; her heart surged with the
fulness of its tides.

[Sidenote: The Unknown Joy]

"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
Up your warm throat to your warm lips, for this...."

Rosemary put the book aside with shaking hands. "I wonder," she thought,
"how it would be if anyone should kiss me. Me," she whispered; "not the
women in the books, but the real me."

The book slipped to the floor unheeded. She sat there in her ugly