Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-05-20

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the nil.
eyes must Of necessity follow. But as
yet no shadow touched her She went
about i'll her life of toll and privation
while her heart was filled with sacred
quiet.
Once could not pity her even when
knowing the untruth in the object Of
her thought. 1t was not possible. To
trust as she did was to walk the borders
of limitless bliss 1t could hardly occur
to her to question. Every morning and
every evening she smiled as she sent a
greeting over to old Mount Hood and
up toward the high, serene sky.
The weeks dragged by. a new,
strange tremor possessed her heart a
pathetic, farreaching look went out
from her eyes. The good night to the
clouds and to the mountain began to
lose its joyous ring.
One morning she went much earlier
to the cleared space and waited longer
Even then the sigh that she gave was
not for herself Something was holding
him; he could not come. It did not en-
ter her thought that he might not come
even If the something had broken its
. grasp. Her nature was one Of trust. All
this waiting did not help her to learn
me letter Of doubt.
HE be sick, - she asserted with sad
conviction. 9TH long heat it be alters
bringin fevers. 80 Then she stretched
/ out her hands, and, though she did not
/ know that bending the knee meant
anything, she knelt Her eyes covered
/ themselves with a mist Of tears and re-
/ fused 10 see even her beloved mountain.
The next day passed without his COM
ing. Her thoughts grew somber. Her
| bright manner intermitted. In the late
afternoon she called the youth to her
Il be goin t see him, - she said.
He was filed with an underlined sense
/ of terror and tried to dissuade her. She
/ only insisted the more strenuously that
| she must go, At last grown premature
! ly old already, he grew prematurely
wise because he saw that Laurel was in
trouble. He went to the grandfather
and wheedled him into letting them
take the beasts and 60 for a long ride
over the old desert trail
They rode swiftly into the "scabby
desert, with its alterations of clayey
and sandy soil. On through the gray
sagebrush and the greasewood-hyp
critic Of another and better shrub. The
rocky hOllows were dry and empty as if
winter SHOWS had never melted in them
to serve as drink for thousands Of cattle
which the herdor turns in winter upon
the desert to crop the bunch grass that
lives for few short months
The gray and dismal ride was in har-
mony with the thoughts Of both. Laurel
was lmpCllcd hy a new feeling in which
40 thought Of herself stirred and which
grew into a terrible certainty that some
unknown evil encompassed her beloved,
holding him III thrall.
When they reached McAlvord s fer
tile land, they rode more slowly until
they came upon a stream. Here they dis
mounted and the youth staid to water
the beasts and TO tether them behind a
clump Of bushes, where they could
browse the juicy grass upon the borders
Of the stream
Laurel went swiftly forward along
the shaded drive. The sun was gone,
but the afterglow spread its radiance
over the earth. AS she neared the ranch.
iera the sound of happy voices greeted
her. She stopped suddenly as if deter,
red from her purpose, bent her head
and peered between the branches of 9
thick shrub
So fair a vision of life had never be,
fore greeted her eyes, nor had it enter
ed her happiest dreams, She caught hel
breath as she looked at the long veran,
da, gay with fringed hammocks an6
great lounging chairs and dainty will
low rockers. Bright rugs were strew1
over the floor. Baskets of flowers de-
pended from the outer roof line. Lonl
vines swung slowly in the evening air