er and be silent of her?

Thus her sensitive thoughts, bringing a succession of confusions,
wandered dreamily on, while the hammock gradually ceased its swinging
and hung as a thing asleep.

CHAPTER XII

A LIGHT ABOVE THE MOUNTAIN

During the latter part of Jane's reflections Brent McElroy was having a
few strange minutes. He had left Arden shortly before sundown and, by
following two side roads, reached the rear gate of Tom Hewlet's farm
without having to appear on the pike. This was no unusual route for him
on evenings when the pike promised hazards such as a chance meeting with
the Harts or Jane.

Whenever Nancy, on the lookout, saw a cloud of dust rising above these
rambling, tree-lined lanes instead of from the white, direct way, a deep
flush of mortification tinged her face. She understood his
circumspection, but wisely refrained from showing it.

Tying his horse, he followed a path up to the gnarled orchard where he
knew she would be waiting. And there he spied her, idly plaiting dry
stems of last year's bluegrass, beneath the distorted old tree which he
had named Nirvana. A glow of extreme pleasure warmed him, for this
Rosalind with her rustic prettiness made an agreeable diversion from the
somewhat monotonous evenings at Arden, and he vastly enjoyed angling
about the edges of her rural pool. But he was unaware that she had never
left its limpid depths. He did not suspect--because he did not think it
possible--that, like a goldfish, she had only swum about in the limited
sphere of her transparent bowl, looking out at the universe with large
eyes which seemed, but were not, wise; and ready, if danger came, to
scurry back into the little frosted castle that constituted the center
of her constricted existence.

No kind words or deeds had reached that frosted little castle during the
years she most required them. It had remained cold and uninviting,
except as a place of shelter, and her soul had shrunk into a sort of
knot--until Brent came. Only at his coming did her hungry nature begin
to uncurl;--only at the coming of this polished gentleman from the great
world, who knew everything, who was the epitome of kindness, who fed her
with confidences and compliments, who inspired her with a sudden sense
of meaningness, of importance--only since then had she begun to realize
that for a long time her heart had craved affection.

He now remained another moment behind the trees to draw a half filled
flask