Sunday evening—after a wonderful walk with Alicia through the already waning woods of Westchester. There has been a certain air of gravity overhanging her, of contrition perhaps, that stabbed with pain. I realized then to what degree her blithe spirit and the starry laughter of her eyes had been the wine of my recent life. I could not tolerate her seeming depression. Besides, there was the matter of her education to be discussed. Jimmie clamored to go with us, but this time even his privileged position did not avail him. I desired to be alone with Alicia.
Was it my mood, I wonder, or do the woods in reality begin to whisper a farewell in the decline of the year? Every tree, even to the youngest sapling, seemed to nod to us as we walked and to rustle a murmur like the leavetaking of a pilgrim bent on a lengthy journey. I have ever been impatient of reading descriptions of nature and have chimed with the scoffers at the pathetic fallacy. Nevertheless, I can bemuse myself for hours listening to the wind among the tree tops or gazing at the haze upon the hills; and in a slow measured rhythm, as if having endless time before them, they invariably spell a message,—a message infinitely sad, but for the creative laughing sun that rides triumphant, high over all.
"Come, Alicia!" I broke out brusquely, joining the sun in his laughter, "we have some bright things to talk over. Don’t let us allow the woods to lull us. They are going to sleep; we are not. Here you are ready for college. Isn’t that soul-stirring?"
She emerged from her reverie as a person shaken from a drowse and smiled with, a distant look in her eyes.
"Bright things," she murmured pensively; "everything that has happened to me since I came to you has been bright, and everything soul-stirring. That’s what makes it so hard, Uncle Ranny—I have been so useless. What good am I?"
I laughed uproariously enough to make the woods shake. Did Alicia know how much I enjoyed combating such statements or did she really mean it?
"You have been—" I wanted to tell her banteringly that she had been a burden and a drag upon my household, a weight not to be borne—but I perceived that she was more than serious. She was sad.
"Now you are, of course, talking nonsense," I answered flatly. "But there is college before you; that ought to cure all that. Perhaps you’re a little morbid. Bright associations will change that."
