But that question Mrs. Marston was quite unable to answer. If she had
known the answer--that the change was in herself, and that the world
was not different, but still kept up its ancient war between love and
respectability, beauty and mass--she would not have liked it, and so
she would not have believed it.

It was seven o'clock when they were put down, tired and laden with
parcels, at the quarry half-way up God's Little Mountain. Edward had
been there for more than an hour, tormented with fears for Hazel's
safety, angry with himself for letting her go. All afternoon he had
fidgeted, worried Martha with suggestions about tea, finally gone to
the shop several miles away for some of Hazel's favourite cake, quite
forgetting that he ought to be in the house breathing. It all resulted
in a most beautiful tea, as Hazel thought when they had pushed and
pulled Mrs. Marston home.

What with the joy of staying the night and the wonder of her new
clothes, Hazel was as radiant and talked so fast that Edward could do
nothing but watch her.

In her short life there had not been many moments of such rose and
gold. It was the happiest hour of Edward's life also; for she looked to
him as flowers to warm heaven, as winter birds to a fruited tree. As he
watched her opening parcel after parcel with frank innocence and little
bird-like cries of rapture, he knew the intolerable sweetness of
bestowing delight on the beloved--a sweetness only equalled by the
intolerable agony of seeing helpless and incurable pain on the loved
face.