tle, a man would be more
apt to treat her as a good comrade than if she were charming and
tall,--who was with him all the time. And how she would be with him,
Dora's imagination readily perceived, because she knew how she herself
would be with him under the circumstances. Before breakfast in the dewy
grass, gathering apples; during work hours, talking through the open
window as he chanced to pass; after five o'clock, walks in the orchard,
walks over the farm, in the woods everywhere, and always those two
together, because there were four of them. How much worse it was that
there were four of them! And the evenings, moonlight, starlight; on the
piazza; good-night on the stairs--it was maddening to think of.

But, nevertheless, she thought of it hour after hour, with no other
result than to become more and more convinced that she was truly in love
with a man who had never given any sign that he loved her, and that there
was every reason to believe that when he gave a sign that he loved, it
would be to another woman, and not to her.

She rose and looked out of the window. A piece of the moon, far gone in
the third quarter, was rising above a mass of evergreens. She had a
courageous young soul, and the waning brightness of the lovers' orb did
not affect her as a disheartening sign.

"It is not right," she said to herself. "I will not do it. I will not
hang like an apple on a tree for any one to pick who chooses, or if
nobody chooses, to drop down to the chickens and pigs. A woman has as
much right to try to do the best for herself as a man has to try to do
the best for himself. I can't really trample on customs as a man can, but
I can do it in my mind, and I do it now. I love him, and I will get him
if I can."

With this Dora sat down, and left the bit of moon to shed what
luminousness it could over the landscape.

Her resolution shed a certain luminousness over Dora's soul. To
determine to do a thing is nearly always inspiriting.

"Yes," she thought, "I will do what I can. He has promised to come very
soon, and he shall not have Congo the first time he comes. He shall come,
and I shall go, and I shall be great friends with Miriam. There will be
nothing false in that, for I like her ever so much, and I shall remember
to think more of what she likes. No one shall see me break down any
customs of society,--especially, he shall not,--but out of my mind they
are swept and utterly gone."

Having thus shaped her course, D