still! They'd love you, too, if they only knew
you, but they're afraid you'll scrub 'em if you get hold of them, the
way you used to scrub me.'"

Victoria smiled--but it was a smile that had tears in it. Euphrasia
Cotton was standing in the shaft of sunlight at the other window,
staring at the little garden.

"Yes, she used to say funny things like that, to make you laugh when you
were all ready to cry. There wasn't many folks understood her. She knew
every path and hilltop within miles of here, and every brook and spring,
and she used to talk about that mountain just as if it was alive."

Victoria caught her breath.

"Yes," continued Euphrasia, "the mountain was alive for her. 'He's
angry to-day, Phrasie. That's because, you lost your temper and scolded
Hilary.' It's a queer thing, but there have been hundreds of times since
when he needed scoldin' bad, and I've looked at the mountain and held
my tongue. It was just as if I saw her with that half-whimsical,
half-reproachful expression in her eyes, holding up her finger at me.
And there were other mornings when she'd say, 'The mountain's lonesome
today, he wants me.' And I vow, I'd look at the mountain and it would
seem lonesome. That sounds like nonsense, don't it?" Euphrasia demanded,
with a sudden sharpness.

"No," said Victoria, "it seems very real to me."

The simplicity, the very ring of truth, and above all the absolute lack
of self-consciousness in the girl's answer sustained the spell.

"She'd go when the mountain called her, it didn't make any difference
whether it was raining--rain never appeared to do her any hurt. Nothin'
natural ever did her any hurt. When she was a little child flittin'
about like a wild creature, and she'd come in drenched to the skin, it
was all I could do to catch her and change her clothes. She'd laugh at
me. 'We're meant to be wet once in a while, Phrasie,' she'd say; 'that's
what the rain's for, to wet us. It washes some of the wickedness out
of us.' It was the unnatural things that hurt her--the unkind words and
makin' her act against her nature. 'Phrasie,' she said once, 'I can't
pray in the meeting-house with my eyes shut--I can't, I can't. I seem to
know what they're all wishing for when they pray,--for more riches, and
more comfort, and more security, and more importance. And God is such a
long way off. I can't feel Him, and the pew hurts my back.' She used to
read me some, out of a book of poetry, and one verse I got by