anished from her face. It clouded over, while
the country lay full in the sun. Her eyes no longer looked wide abroad,
but expressed defeat and retirement. Listlessly she began to gather her
hair together.

"Do you ever feel as if you could not get room enough, Alec?" she said,
wearily.

"No, I don't," he answered, honestly and stupidly. "I have always as
much as I want. I should have thought you would--up here."

"I did feel satisfied for a moment; but it was only a moment. It is all
gone now. I shall never have room enough."

Alec had nothing to say in reply. He never had anything to give Kate
but love; and now he gave her more love. It was all he was rich in. But
she did not care for his riches. And so, after gazing a while, she
turned towards the descent. Alec picked up her hat, and took his place
at the pony's head. He was not so happy as he thought he should be.
Somehow she was of another order, and he could not understand her--he
could only worship her.

The whole of the hot afternoon they spent on the grass, whose mottling
of white clover filled the wandering airs with the odours of the honey
of Hymettus. And after tea Kate sang, and Alec drank every tone as if
his soul lived by hearing.

In this region the sun works long after hours in the summer, and they
went out to see him go down weary. They leaned together over the gate
and looked at the level glory, which now burned red and dim. Lamp of
life, it burns all night long in the eternal night of the universe, to
chase the primeval darkness from the great entrance hall of the "human
mortals."

"What a long shadow everything throws!" said Kate. "When the shadows
gather all together, and melt into one, then it is night. Look how the
light creeps about the roots of the grass on the ridge, as if it were
looking for something between the shadows. They are both going to die.
Now they begin."

The sun diminished to a star--a spark of crimson fire, and vanished. As
if he had sunk in a pool of air, and made it overflow, a gentle ripple
of wind blew from the sunset over the grass. They could see the grass
bending and swaying and bathing in its coolness before it came to them.
It blew on their faces at length, and whispered something they could
not understand, making Kate think of her mother, and Alec of Kate.

Now that same breeze blew upon Tibbie and Annie, as they sat in the
patch of meadow by the cottage, between the river and the _litster's
dam_. It made Ti