faint notes of a bugle call, were the only things to break the
absolute hush; and the light was my refreshment, on river and tree and
rock and hill; one day sharp and clear, another day fairylandlike and
dreamy through golden mist.

It was a good retiring place in any case, so early in the day. I could
read and pray there better than in a room, I thought. The next morning
after my second dancing party, I was there as usual. It was a sultry July
morning, the yellow light in the haze on the hills threatening a very hot
day. I was very happy, as usual; but somehow my thoughts went roaming off
into the yellow haze, as if the landscape had been my life, and I were
trying to pick out points of light here and there, and sporting on the
gay surface. I danced my dances over again in the flow of the river;
heard soft words of kindness or admiration in the song of the birds;
wandered away in mazes of speculative fancy among the thickets of tree
stems and underbrush. The sweet wonderful note of a wood-thrush,
somewhere far out of sight, assured me, what everything conspired to
assure me, that I was certainly in fairyland, not on the common earth.
But I could not get on with my Bible at all. Again and again I began to
read; then a bird or a bough or a ripple would catch my attention, and
straightway I was off on a flight of fancy or memory, dancing over again
my dances with Mr. Thorold, dwelling upon the impression of his figure
and dress, and the fascination of his brilliant, changing hazel eyes; or
recalling Captain Vaux's or somebody else's insipid words and looks, or
Faustina St. Clair's manner of ill-will; or on the other hand giving a
passing thought to the question how I should dress the next hop night.
After a long wandering, I would come back and begin at my Bible again,
but only for a little; my fancy could not be held to it; and a few
scarcely read verses and a few half-uttered petitions were all I had
accomplished before the clangour of the hotel gong, sounding down even to
me, warned me that my time was gone. And the note of the wood-thrush, as
I slowly mounted the path, struck reproachfully and rebukingly upon the
ear of my conscience.

How had this come about? I mused as I went up the hill. What was the
matter? What had bewitched me? No pleasure in my Bible; no time for
prayer; and only the motion of feet moving to music, only the flutter
of lace and muslin, and the flashing of hazel eyes, filling my brain.
What was