with arrogance and fulness as the boasting waxed.

"That kind is the most hopeless of all," remarked Mrs. Williams in a
low voice, amused at the amazement on the faces of the Indian children.

Yet Eleanor was glad. The babble gave her opportunity for withdrawal
in her own thoughts; and when she came back to the Ranch House with
Matthews, leaving Lizzie still boasting at the School, she hardly
noticed that her father stopped the frontiersman on the threshold, but
she passed out to the steamer chair on her own piazza. What was _It_?
Eleanor could not have answered if she had tried. She only knew that
she had drunk of the fulness of living, and that time could not rob her
of that consciousness. It was there, forever with her, breathing in
every breath, pulsing in the rhythm of her blood, "Closer than hands or
feet," as the Pantheistic poet has sung, immanent, enveloping,
possessory, obsessory, warm, living, a flooding realization of life,
giving tone to every touch of existence, like the strings of the violin
to the bow of the skilled musician. She wanted to sing; the long, low,
jubilant chant of womanhood which no poet has yet sung. By the joy of
it, she knew what the sorrow of it must be. By the purity, she
realized what the poisoning of the fountain springs of life could mean.
By the triumph, she realized what the defeat, the debasement could be.
She thought of love as a fountain spring, a spring into which you could
not both cast defilement and drink of waters undefiled; as an altar
flame fed with incense lighting the darkness; and one could no more
offend love with impurity, than cast the dung heap on the altar flame
and not expect blastment. She wanted to clap her hands as the gay,
twinkling cottonwoods were clapping theirs to the sunset; to dance and
beat gypsy tambourines as the pines were throbbing and harping and
clicking to the age-old melodies of Pan. She wanted--what was it? Had
the Israelitish women of old timed their joy to the rhythm of the
dance; or was it a later strain, the strain from the tribal woman of
the plains who heard a voice in the music of the laughing leaves, and
the throb of the river, and the shout of the sun-glinted cataract, and
the little lispings and whisperings of the waves among the reeds? The
stars came pricking out. Each hung a tiny censer flame to the altar of
night and holiness and mystery. She knew she could never again see the
stars come pricking through the purple