sight. With this comparative bliss came a faintness and a trembling that
presently made her slip down upon the warm and sunny floor, and lie there,
with her face within her arm and the tears upon her cheeks. The odor of
the box wrapped her like a mantle; a lizard glided past her; somewhere in
open spaces birds were singing; finally a greyhound came down the path,
and put its nose into the hollow of her hand.

She rose to her knees, and curled her arm around the dog's neck; then,
with a long sigh, stood up, and asked of herself if this were the way to
the house. She had never seen the house at close range, had never been in
this walled garden. It was from Williamsburgh that the minister had taken
her to his home, eleven years before. Sometimes from the river, in those
years, she had seen, rising above the trees, the steep roof and the upper
windows; sometimes upon the creek she had gone past the garden wall, and
had smelled the flowers upon the other side.

In her lonely life, with the beauty of the earth about her to teach her
that there might be greater beauty that she yet might see with a daily
round of toil and sharp words to push her to that escape which lay in a
world of dreams, she had entered that world, and thrived therein. It was a
world that was as pure as a pearl, and more fantastic than an Arabian
tale. She knew that when she died she could take nothing out of life with
her to heaven. But with this other world it was different, and all that
she had or dreamed of that was fair she carried through its portals. This
house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded by tall trees, seen at
far intervals and from a distance, as through a glass darkly, it had
become to her an enchanted spot, about which played her quick fancy, but
where her feet might never stray.

But now the spell which had held the place in slumber was snapped, and her