requirements very well. It was near her, and I might live here
for a time unnoticed, but what I was going to do with my
opportunity I did not know. Several times the conviction forced
itself upon me that I should get up at once and go to Europe by
the first steamer, and so show myself that I was a man of sense.

This conviction was banished on the second afternoon of my
stay at the mill. I was sitting under a tree in the orchard
near the house, thinking and smoking my pipe, when along the road
which ran by the side of the lake came Mr. Vincent on my black
horse General and his daughter on my mare Sappho. Instinctively
I pulled my straw hat over my eyes, but this precaution was not
necessary. They were looking at the beautiful lake, with its
hills and overhanging trees, and saw me not!

When the very tip of Sappho's tail had melted into the
foliage of the road, I arose to my feet and took a deep breath of
the happy air. I had seen her, and it was with her father she
was riding.

I do not believe I slept a minute that night through thinking
of her, and feeling glad that I was near her, and that she had
been riding with her father.

When the early dawn began to break an idea brighter than the
dawn broke upon me: I would get up and go nearer to her. It is
amazing how much we lose by not getting up early on the long
summer days. How beautiful the morning might be on this earth I
never knew until I found myself wandering by the edge of my woods
and over my lawn with the tender gray-blue sky above me and all