s thought lay at the root of the calamity. The entire life of
the little world in which she had grown up, on all its sides, in all its
ideals and sentiments, stood before her, as if some great painter had
made a picture of it. She had never before been able to stand so
completely apart from the surroundings of her childhood. And she was
able to do so now, not because Miss Du Prel discoursed about it, but
because Hadria's point of view had shifted sympathetically to the point
of view of her companion, through the instinctive desire to see how
these familiar things would look to alien eyes. That which had seemed
merely prosaic and dreary, became characteristic; the very things which
she had taken most for granted were exactly those which turned out to be
the significant and idiomatic facts.

These had made permanent inroads into the mind and character. It was
with these that Hadria would have to reckon all her days, under whatever
conditions she might hereafter be placed. Daily surroundings were not
merely pleasant or unpleasant facts, otherwise of no importance; they
were the very material and substance of character; the push and impetus,
or the let and hindrance; the guardians or the assassins of the soul.

CHAPTER VII.

Miss Du Prel had promised to allow Hadria to drive her to Darachanarvan,
a little town on the banks of the river, about seven miles across
country.

Hadria was in high spirits, as they trundled along the white roads with
the wind in their faces, the hills and the blue sky spread out before
them, the pleasant sound of the wheels and the trotting of the pony
setting their thoughts to rhythm.

The trees were all shedding their last yellow leaves, and the air was
full of those faded memories of better days, whirling in wild companies
across the road, rushing upward on the breast of some vagabond gust,
drifting, spinning, shuddering along the roadside, to lie there at last,
quiet, among a host of brothers, with little passing tremors, as if
(said Valeria) they were silently sobbing because of their banishment
from their kingdom of the air.

Miss Du Prel, though she enjoyed the beauty of the day and the scenery,
seemed sad of mood. "This weather recalls so many autumns," she said.
"It reminds me too vividly of wonderful days, whose like I shall never
see again, and friends, many of whom are dead, and many lost sight of in
this inexorable coming and going of people and things, this inexorable
ch