wding and tense, the climax
so hideous, that she had been stunned for a time, then emerged into her
present state of tranquil and not unpleasant philosophy--when the
present moment, if it contained distraction, was something to be
grateful for; otherwise, to be borne with until the sure compensation
arrived. The future had neither terror for her nor any surpassing
concern, although all her old impersonal interest in life had revived,
and she was still too young not to be very much like other girls when
circumstances were propitious. And at last she had conceived--or
evolved--a definite purpose.

This morning she was living as eagerly as ever during her first deep
months in Europe. The excitement of the evening still possessed her; she
had held her own, received homage, lived a little chapter in an English
novel; above all, she was young, she was free, she was no longer
unhappy; and she loved the early morning and swift walking.

It was Sunday; the shooting would not begin until the morrow; everybody
except herself, apparently, still slept; the breakfast-hour was
half-past nine. She walked down a long lane behind the lawns and entered
the first of the coverts. There was a drowsy whir of wings--once--that
was all. There was a glint of dancing water in the heavier shades, a
rosy light beyond the farthest of the trees in the little wood where the
delicate pendent leaves hung asleep in the sweet peace. There was not an
expiring echo of her own wild forests here; nor any likeness to the
splendid royal preserves of Germany and Austria, with their ancient
trees, their miles of garnished floor, the sudden glimpse of chamois or
stag standing on a rocky ledge against the sky as if drilled for his
part. These woods had a quality all their own: of Nature in her last
little strongholds, but smiling, serenely triumphant, of tempered heat
without chill, above all, of perfect peace.

Nothing in England had impressed Isabel like this atmosphere of peace
that broods over its fields and lanes, its woods and fells, in the
evening and early morning hours; the atmosphere that makes it seem to be
set to the tune of Wordsworth's verses, and to keep it everlastingly
old-fashioned and out of all relation to its towns. As she left the wood
she saw a big hay-stack, as firm and shapely of outline as a house, not
a loose wisp anywhere. A girl, bareheaded, was driving a cow across a
field. A narrow river moved as slowly as if the world had never
aw