She would go to Harrisburg in June only for a day on her way to Ephrata. Her self-examination led her farther than her relations with Stephen, and she believed that in her preoccupation with herself she had been undutiful to her grandfather and to Matthew. When Miss Grammer, who had taken a cottage on the lake, invited her wistfully to go with her, she burst into tears.
"I wish I could. But I've written to my brother that I'm coming home."
Miss Grammer studied her gravely. Had the object of love died or had he been married? It was the former of these sorrows which she had suffered in her youth.
"You knew that you might come with me, surely, Ellen?"
Spring breaks the best of resolutions of Ellen's particular variety. The willow branches turned a brighter yellow, the brook bubbled more and more loudly, crocuses and scilla enlivened the grass. Presently flowering shrubs bloomed; one walked in welcome shade where yesterday there had been sunshine; bees hummed in and out of classrooms where students nodded. Those who had studied ceased to be industrious and those who had been idle continued in their course. There was little talk of Avogadro's Law or of the Elizabethan spirit of Shelley; there was discussion of baseball games and boat-races. Envy was transferred from him who made high marks to him who, like the wise virgins, had provided against springtime by saving permitted absences.
On Memorial Day there was a boat-race and the students departed with few exceptions to the lakeside. A half-dozen, studious like Miss Grammer, worked in the library, their thoughts occupied with matters alien to boat-races, and others whose purses were empty sought points of vantage on distant hillsides. Only Ellen turned her back upon both work and play and went in an opposite direction. She meant this afternoon, while the struggle on the lake was in progress, to take herself to task.
She selected her battleground with poor judgment. One may win a victory over one's self as one walks on a frozen road or under the bare branches of wintry trees, but when one approaches the scene of conflict through beds of daisies and sweet clover one is weakened at the start. Even her physical strength seemed to be failing when at last she sat down on a fallen tree at the edge of a little wood and clasped her hands round her knees. The land fell in a gentle slope to the campus whose towers rose above the tree-tops. Beyond, and far below, the lake lay clear and blue. There was no house near by and there was no sound of the life of human beings, and nothing to take her attention away from her own problem.