It was not a
philanthropic resolution, but a spontaneous desire to share her own
gladness, and to lead the others, if she might, from the chill darkness
in which they dwelt to the clear air of the heights.

Oh, but it was good to be alive! The little birds that hopped from bough
to bough chirped ecstatically, the nine silver-clad birches swayed and
nodded in the cool wind, and the peaceful river in the valley below
sparkled and dimpled at the caress of the sun. The thousand sounds and
fragrances of Spring thrilled her to eager answer; she, too, aspired and
yearned upward as the wakened grass-blades pierced the sod and the
violets of last year dreamed once more of bloom.

Yesterday she had emerged from darkness into light. She had been born
again as surely as the tiny dweller of the sea casts off his shell. The
outworn habitation of the past was forever left behind her, to be swept
back, by the tides of the new life, into some forgotten cave.

"Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul,
As the swift seasons roll."

[Sidenote: The Same, Yet Different]

The words said themselves aloud. She had learned the whole poem long
ago, but, to-day, the beautiful lines assumed a fresh significance, for
had she not, by a single step, passed from the cell of self into
comradeship with the whole world? Was she not a part of everything and
had not everything become a part of her? What could go wrong when the
finite was once merged with the infinite, the individual with the
universal soul?

She sat down on the log that Alden had rolled back against the two
trees, three years ago, when they had first begun to come to the Hill of
the Muses for an occasional hour of friendly talk. Everything was the
same, and yet subtly different, as though seen from another aspect or in
another light. Over yonder, on the hillside farthest from the valley, he
had put his arm around her and refused to let her go.

She remembered vividly every word and every look and that first shy
kiss. Of course they belonged together! How foolish they had been not to
see it before! Was she not the only woman he knew, and was he not the
only man to whom she could say more than "How do you do?" God had meant
it so from the beginning, ever since He said: "Let there be light, and
there was light."

[Sidenote: An Unwonted Shyness]

Dreaming happily, Rosemary sat on the fallen tree, leaning against the
great oak that towered above her. The first pink lea