“There! That’s settled,” Julie said to herself, drawing a deep breath and aware of an enormous content and elation. Her feet moved over the ground with the flying swiftness that had borne her up the church aisle. She was conscious of a beautiful elasticity and freedom, as though a binding cord that had been twisted tighter and tighter to constriction had suddenly snapped, giving her relief and air and release into a beneficent world. It seemed to her she had never seen a day so exquisite. The sun bent over her in floods of golden calm. The mountains that encircled Hart’s Run, the blue sky and white drifting June clouds were in themselves climaxes of ecstasy, and yet they were more also, veilings of something hidden, enormous, and completely satisfying. She stood still in the street a minute and gazed up to the amazing blue of the sky, with the big puffs of silver clouds riding it. “Oh, my Lord, how beautiful that sky is!” she whispered. “And it’s always there,” she thought in astonishment; for it was as though she were seeing it for the first time. “Why,” she thought suddenly, “Why, it doesn’t make any difference whether I pray or don’t pray in public. I don’t know why I ever worried about it or about what folks would think. Oh, ain’t the sky beautiful!” she reiterated. She was a little behind the rest of the congregation, and as she made her way homeward, small knots of people were all in front of her, going slowly along. Julie was conscious of a very warm and friendly outpouring toward them, but she was in no hurry to overtake any one. For the moment she wanted to be alone, isolated in that enormous sense of freedom, which only the sky was big enough to encompass. As she approached her own house, she saw that Mr. and Mrs. Bixby were standing there in conversation with Mrs. Wicket. She quickened her pace, feeling her ankles supple and swift at each step, and came up to them in a little gust of eagerness. “Look at the sky,” she cried, waving her hand toward it. They all stopped talking and turned their faces up, tipping back on their heels, and shading their eyes. “What is it? What do you see, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket demanded. “It’s so beautiful!” Julie cried. “So blue--and those big white clouds!” “Well, for mercy sake, is _that_ all!” the other ejaculated. “Why, I thought it must be a flying machine.” “But it’s so beautiful!” Julie persisted, trying to draw them into her elation. “I don’t care for that kind of a sky,” Mrs. Bixby said languidly. “It’s mighty apt to bring a storm, and thunder always makes me s’ nervous.” Julie felt crushed, as though the sky were a hat which she had offered for sale, but which both ladies had repudiated. Mr. Bixby essayed a timid assent. “It is beautiful,” he said, cocking his head on one side to spy upward. “I don’t believe I ever saw it so blue.” “I never saw how beautiful it is,” Julie said turning to him involuntarily. “I’ve--I’ve--why it’s like I’d just seen it for the first time.”