ircumstance flowed between them, ever
broadening, until it seemed like an impassable river.

Each of them said, "It was only an episode." Each of them was sure
that there was nothing in it which could mean a lasting pain, nothing
which time would not obliterate. Each of them repeated a wise phrase
or two about "passing fancies" and "puppy love," and so they went
their ways lightly enough, reasonably resolving not to think of each
other any more.

But it was strange how clearly and brightly the scenes of the summer
itself lived in their memories. To both of them there was a peculiar
and deepening vividness in those pictures of certain places.

The hardwood ridges in the forest, where there was no undergrowth and
they could walk straight ahead, side by side, through the interminable
colonnade of beeches and birches which upheld the green, gold-flecked
roof,--the dark tangled spruce thicket, where one must stoop under the
interlacing lower branches, dead and brittle, and creep over the soft
brown carpet of fallen needles, dry and slippery, in order to reach a
little open glade, moist with springs, where the red wood-lily and the
purple-fringed orchid grew,--the high steep rock that jutted out from
the woods about half-way up the slope of the Dome, as if to make a
narrow view-point of surprise where two people could stand close
together and look down upon the broad valley and the blue hills
beyond,--the old hemlock, with its big, bent knees covered with moss,
ready to hold them comfortably in its lap, while they read poetry or
stories of adventure, and the little river sung its sleepy song at
their feet,--the long stillwater where the canoe floated quietly among
the mirrored stars,--the merry rapids where the moon path spread
before them broad and silvery, luring them to follow it down to
danger,--the twilight hour in the music room, where the piano answered
to the violin, and through the open door and windows the aromatic
breath of the pine-trees and the spicy smell of wild grapes drifted
faintly in,--a certain afternoon when the cool rain-drops beat in
their faces as they tramped home, after a long walk over the hills,
wet and joyous, swinging their clasped hands and chanting some
foolish, endless song of the road,--a certain evening when the
murmuring hemlock above them grew silent, and the whispering water
below them seemed to hush, and a single big star across the river was
softly throbbing in the mauve dusk, and th