With a gesture as if warding off something unpleasant—something real and unseen—she walked across the room and drew a little volume from a book-case. It opened in her hand, and as she sat down her eyes fell upon the lines—
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last. Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life’s unchanging sea.”
With a sharp breath she closed the book. The whole scene stood before her again; the house crowded with merry-makers, their curious faces turned toward the reciter in courteous attention, but with an expression as though to ask what it all was about; the young man, with slightly flushed features but clear, deep, even voice; and then that wonderful instant of telepathy when their eyes met, and she heard the voice deepen and broaden as though a great storage of reserve energy had been connected to the human dynamo.
She rose with the book still in her fingers, drew a shawl about her slight figure, and stepped out into the night. It was absolutely dark. A soft wind moved quietly, toying with the light folds of her dress; a few heavy drops of rain spattered in the dust. God’s heaven had descended in a mantle of darkness and lay brooding over all the face of the prairies. And somewhere under that mantle of darkness, somewhere under the heaven of that same God, was a young man, sturdy and physically strong, but bearing in his quiet eyes and melancholy mouth a load beyond his years. How had his “stately mansions” narrowed in!
As high-strung natures will, she sought relief from her mental torment in physical exercise. Regardless of the darkness and the threatening rain she walked down the path and out at the gate; her feet found the hard earth of the country road and she walked rapidly along, caring little where she went. But the blood, demanded by her exercise, drew away from the brain; the cool, moist wind salved the fever of her brow, and presently she turned her footsteps homeward. As she passed the summer-house a sudden impulse seized her; she entered, laid herself down on a bench of woven willows, and in a few minutes was lost in sleep.