went away come back, when woods, fields, thickets, and streams are
full of returns.

Gabriella was not disappointed. Those provident old tree-mothers on
the orchard slope, whose red-cheeked children are autumn apples,
had not let themselves be fatally surprised by the great February
frost: their bark-cradled bud-infants had only been wrapped away
the more warmly till danger was over. For many days now the
hillside had been a grove of pink and white domes under each of
which hung faint fragrance: the great silent marriage-bells of the
trees.

After the early family supper, Gabriella, if there had been no
shower, would take her shawl to sit on and some bit of work for
companionship. She would go out to the edge of this orchard away
from the tumult of the house. The hill sloped down into a wide
green valley winding away toward the forest below. Through this
valley a stream of white spring water, drunk by the stock, ran
within banks of mint and over a bed of rocks and moss. On the
hillside opposite was a field of young hemp stretching westward--
soon to be a low sea of rippling green. Beyond this field was the
sunset; over it flashed the evening star; and for the past few days
beside the star had hung the inconstant, the constant, crescent of
ages.

She liked to spread her shawl on the edge of the orchard
overlooking the valley--a deep carpet of grass sprinkled with
wind-blown petals; to watch the sky kindle and burn out; see the
recluse Evening come forth before the Night and walk softly down
the valley toward the woods; feel as an elixir about her the air,