mic odor exhaled from them.

These gentle sights and sounds and odors blended in the influence which
Jeff's spirit felt more and more. He realized that he was a blot on the
loveliness of the morning. He had a longing to make atonement and to win
forgiveness. His heart was humbled toward Cynthia, and he went wondering
how his mother would make it out with her, and how, if she won him any
advantage, he should avail himself of it and regain the girl's trust; he
had no doubt of her love. He perceived that there was nothing for him
hereafter but the most perfect constancy of thought and deed, and he
desired nothing better.

At a turn of his road where it branched toward the Huddle a group of
young girls stood joking and laughing; before Jeff came up with them they
separated, and all but one continued on the way beyond the turning. She
came toward Jeff, who gayly recognized her as she drew near.

She blushed and bridled at his bow and at his beauty and splendor, and in
her embarrassment pertly said that she did not suppose he would have
remembered her. She was very young, but at fifteen a country girl is not
so young as her town sister at eighteen in the ways of the other sex.

Jeff answered that he should have known her anywhere, in spite of her
looking so much older than she did in the summer when she had come with
berries to the hotel. He said she must be feeling herself quite a young
lady now, in her long dresses, and he praised the dress which she had on.
He said it became her style; and he found such relief from his heavy
thoughts in these harmless pleasantries that he kept on with them. He had
involuntarily turned with her to walk back to her house on the way he had
come, and he asked her if he might not carry her catkins for her. She had
a sheaf of them in the hollow of her slender arm, which seemed to him
very pretty, and after a little struggle she yielded them to him. The
struggle gave him still greater relief from his self-reproach, and at her
gate he begged her to let him keep one switch of the pussywillows, and he
stood a moment wondering whether he might not ask her for something else.
She chose one from the bundle, and drew it lightly across his face before
she put it in his hand. "You may have this for Cynthy," she said, and she
ran laughingly up the pathway to her door.

XLVI

Cynthia did not appear at dinner, and Jeff asked his mother when he saw
her alone if she had spoken to the girl. "Yes, but