eat the cool, moist berries.

"Yes, now it is different," remarked Billy at last.

"How so?" asked Marion in a business-like tone.

"I feel," said Billy, "as if everything were quite easy again, as if I
could decide anything. I am not a bit afraid, and it can be as tragic
as it likes."

"Tragic," remarked Marion a trifle indistinctly, for her mouth was full
of currants, "tragic is like at the theatre."

From the other side of the bush Billy's suppressed laughter was heard:
"Why Marion!" Then Billy straightened up, held a bunch high against the
moon, looked at it and said impressively, "Tragic is sad, but sad like
his eyes, sad but still wonderfully beautiful, more beautiful than
anything that is jolly." Then she bent her head back and let the bunch
glide slowly into her open mouth, and in this action she felt wholly
magnificent, wholly beautiful, wholly a part of the moonlight night.

Gradually the moonlight lost in brightness, and a gray luminosity
mingled with it and displaced it, a light which looked as if it were
coming through dusty window-panes.

"The morning is coming," said Billy seriously, "come, let us go."

"Where to?" asked Marion.

"We'll wait for the sun," decided Billy.

The two girls went to the end of the garden, where the meadow begins,
and sat down on a bench. They were a trifle pale and shivered as they
huddled together, but Billy sat quite erect none the less, her eyes
large and wakeful, her lips as if ready for an excited smile. She still
felt all the grateful solemnity of that sadness, which was after all
wonderfully beautiful. The mists on the meadow became transparent, the
sky turned almost white, a magpie began to chatter in the thicket, and
a crow flew through the glassy twilight, very black and heavy. A
dream-world, and Billy felt that surrender which we have in dreams, for
dreams give us all possible miracles even without our aid. Then came
color, a string of rose-red cloudlets laid themselves on the sky, over
the black tops of the forest trees there came a shower of red, and then
suddenly everything was full of the commotion of a purple and golden
light. "Ah, there it is," said Billy, and the two girls stared
motionless and as if stupefied at the rising sun. But as the sun
rose higher, and the colors all drowned in the uniform yellow light,
Billy's face again grew serious and lined with care, for here was
another day with its responsibilities and decisions. "Come," said Billy
to