id not return to the school. Much of the time she
was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to wane, and
the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze was beginning
to soften the landscape, and the mast delicious days of the year were
lending their attraction to the scenery of The Mountain. It was not very
singular that Elsie should be lingering in her old haunts, from which
the change of season must soon drive her. But Old Sophy saw clearly
enough that some internal conflict was going on, and knew very well that
it must have its own way and work itself out as it best could. As much
as looks could tell Elsie had told her. She had said in words, to be
sure, that she could not love. Something warped and thwarted the emotion
which would have been love in another, no doubt; but that such an
emotion was striving with her against all malign influences which
interfered with it the old woman had a perfect certainty in her own
mind.

Everybody who has observed the working of emotions in persons of various
temperaments knows well enough that they have periods of incubation,
which differ with the individual, and with the particular cause and
degree of excitement, yet evidently go through a strictly self-limited
series of evolutions, at the end of which, their result--an act of
violence, a paroxysm of tears, a gradual subsidence into repose, or
whatever it may be--declares itself, like the last stage of an attack of
fever and ague. No one can observe children without noticing that there
is a personal equation, to use the astronomer's language, in their
tempers, so that one sulks an hour over an offence which makes another a
fury for five minutes, and leaves him or her an angel when it is over.

At the end of three days, Elsie braided her long, glossy, black hair,
and shot a golden arrow through it. She dressed herself with more than
usual care, and came down in the morning superb in her stormy beauty.
The brooding paroxysm was over, or at least her passion had changed its
phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he had always many fears for
her in her hours and days of gloom, but, for reasons before assigned,
had felt that she must be trusted to herself, without appealing to
actual restraint, or any other supervision than such as Old Sophy could
exercise without offence.

She went off at the accustomed hour to the school. All the girls had
their eyes on her. None so keen as these young misses to kn