eams of her for the future even, I sat in a sort of stupor
until it was too late to go, and then I walked out to look at things.

The upland phlox, we called them pinks, were gone; the roses had fallen
and were represented by green haws, turning to red; the upland scarlet
lilies were vanished; but the tall lilies of the moist places were
flaming like yellow stars over the tall grass, each with its six dusty
anthers whirling like little windmills about its red stigma; and beside
these lilies, with their spotted petals turned back to their roots,
stood the clumps of purple marsh phlox; while towering over them all
were the tall rosin-weeds with their yellow blossoms like sunflowers,
and the Indian medicine plant waving purple plumes. There was a sense of
autumn in the air. Far off across the marsh I saw that the settlers had
their wheat in symmetrical beehive-shaped stacks while mine stood in the
shock, my sloping hillside slanting down to the marsh freckled with the
shocks until it looked dark--the almost sure sign of a bountiful crop.
And as I looked at this scene of plenty, I sickened at it. What use to
me were wheat in the shock, hay in the stack, cattle on the prairie,
corn already hiding the ground? Nothing! Less than nothing: for I had
lost the thing for which I had worked--lost it before I had claimed it.
I sat down and saw the opposite side of the marsh swim in my tears.

4

And then Rowena came into my view as she passed the house. I hastily
dried my eyes, and went to meet her, astonished, for she was alone. She
was riding one of Gowdy's horses, and had that badge of distinction in
those days, a side-saddle and a riding habit. She looked very
distinguished, as she rode slowly toward me, her long skirt hanging
below her feet, one knee crooked about the saddle horn, the other in the
stirrup. I had not seen a woman riding thus since the time I had watched
them sweeping along in all their style in Albany or Buffalo. She came up
to me and stopped, looking at me without a word.

"Why of all things!" I said. "Rowena, is this you!"

"What's left of me," said she.

I stood looking at her for a minute, thinking of what her father and
mother had said, and finally trying to figure out what seemed to be a
great change in her. There was something new in her voice, and her
manner of looking at me as she spoke; and something strange in the way
she looked out of her eyes. Her face was a little paler than it used to
be, as