ht in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon
her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how
she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision.
And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other,
turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm
in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself
whether any adornments rather out of the common course--hop-blossoms,
for instance--were becoming. That question, and the other, about all
women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day.

Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he
brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said
to me, in her quiet way,--

"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I--_hate_!"

She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been
speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what
she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said
she,--

"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched.
Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown
back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing."

I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she
about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings,
returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides
came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And this, I
thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak!

He had always been more open with me than anybody,--had expressed
himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and
about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to
speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of
encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle.
Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's
reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love
for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care
seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my
faith to David.

How would it do to make a bold move,--to speak to her? Might I not show
her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed?
Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I
ma