ys, and much preferred the
friendship of the simple, dispassionate Winnebagos. But now that she and
Veronica had met after a year's separation, Sahwah suddenly realized
that the dark-eyed, temperamental little Hungarian girl had an
irresistible fascination for her; that her heart had gone out to her
completely. Sahwah was by nature cool and unemotional, and not given to
those sudden flares of friendship with which so many girls are
constantly being consumed, which burn brilliantly for a short season and
them go out of their own accord; it usually took a long time to kindle a
friendship with her. Sahwah herself could not understand her sudden,
fierce, almost motherly love for Veronica. It had not been of gradual
growth like her other friendships; it had been born all in an instant
that first night of her arrival at Carver House, when Veronica had
played and through Sahwah's heart there had gone a strange thrill of
sadness, a yearning for something which she could not understand.

From that time on Sahwah could hardly bear to have Veronica out of her
sight; she wanted to be with her all day long; she was filled with a
desire to protect her, to mother her, to caress her, to make her great
dark eyes light with laughter, to go off alone with her, to discuss with
her in private confidences the momentous affairs of girlhood.

Sahwah's soul was being strangely stirred in many ways these last few
days. A queer restlessness had taken possession of her, totally foreign
to her old tranquil, composed state of mind. Unexplainedly she found
herself growing moody and dreamy; at times she had a curious feeling of
having just experienced something, but what it was she could not
remember; her mind went groping in its subconscious self for something
which constantly eluded it, her heart--

"Went crooning a low song it could not learn,
But wandered over it, as one who gropes
For a forgotten chord upon a lyre."

At times she was filled with a great sadness, a poignant world-sorrow;
at times with an indescribable exaltation, a longing to burst forth into
triumphant song and tell the whole world of her gladness. Without
knowing why or wherefore, she was vaguely conscious that in some way she
was different from what she was before she came to Carver House, and she
also knew that things would never be just as they were before. Somehow
or other the focus had changed, a corner had been turned.

Equally unexplainable was the way in which