The sight of her father toiling upward sobered her ecstasy. She sat down to await him, feeding on beauty as she braided her hair. She could see the valley, the lake, and the river all running towards the sea between walls of ever lessening hills. Here, at the valley's head, they were immense; they swept to the sky and rolled their great backs into distant valleys, and the little homesteads down below were meek in their shadow; but, like a wave that has spent its strength, the heights diminished as they approached the shore, that shore lying between two oceans, the one of water and the one of hills.
Her eyes felt cleansed of all the doubtful sights they had ever met, and her mind shared in the cleansing. Her happiness was so deep that she did not know of it; for, as nearly as human beings may, she was seeing things filtered of self, and the wide winds were in her soul.
She had made two thick plaits by the time her father sank to the ground and leaned his head against her shoulder.
"I wish your mother could have seen this," he said.
"The dear soul would never have got here. And now she doesn't have to climb at all. She'll be very glad, you know, to be allowed to look down on it all without any trouble."
"I came here so often without her, but it was not time I could have spent with her. That comforts me. But there are little things one did or did not do. Theresa, when you love, don't be afraid to let your conduct reflect your heart."
"Very nice, my dear; but I was thinking of a different kind of love."
"Oh, don't talk to me of that! Not till I'm middle-aged. Then, perhaps, I'll consider it, and marry a comfortable widower, slightly infirm, so that I can occasionally escape, but not ill enough to need nursing."
"You'll have no such jog-trot end, my dear. I hope you'll run in harness with a swifter steed."
"I don't want to be harnessed at all," she said, and lay back.
Their thoughts went on different journeys, and his were so absorbing that, when he halted at his next remark, he had forgotten how easily she might trace his route.
"I hope you will meet Alexander some day," he said. Then he flushed guiltily, and, with a pitiful attempt at carelessness, began to hum untunefully.
Her words came instinctively, like an arm raised against a blow. "Oh, I expect I shall." The next moment, she could marvel at the readiness with which she had spoken, in spite of her stiffened body and the lump of revolt in her throat.
