The night was still young, and up above the Long Hill there lingered the gold and pink of the sunset. Above the black pines of Arrow Hill a great round moon hung in the amethyst skies. And low over the valley there stretched a misty veil of gold and silver, a magic web woven by the fingers of the moonrise held out in farewell to touch the fairy hands of the sunset. It was such a night as could intoxicate Elizabeth. As the boys stood making arrangements for their early morning drive to Cheemaun, she leaned over the gate and looked down the long ghostly white line of Champlain's Road, hearing only the soft splash of the mill water-fall coming up through the scented dusk. She scarcely noticed Charles Stuart's farewell; nor his lingering hand-clasp. When he was gone she went upstairs to her room, and long after Mary and the rest of the household were asleep, she sat by the window. And for the first time she strove to put on paper the thoughts that were surging in her heart, demanding expression. Elizabeth had written many, many rhymes, but they had all been gay and nonsensical. She had never tried before to express a serious thought. And to-night, she did not guess that her success was due to the fact that her heart was aching over the parting with John. CHAPTER XII LEFT BEHIND And so the barque Elizabeth was left stranded while the stream of progress swept onward, bearing her friends. After the boys had left, the languorous October days passed very slowly at The Dale, and Elizabeth's energies of both body and mind soon began to cry out for a wider field of activity. She was hourly oppressed with a sense of her own uselessness, a feeling her aunt's aggrieved manner tended to foster. Her heart smote her as she saw everyone at work but herself. She tried to help her father with his township affairs, but he met all her offers of assistance with his indulgent smile, and the remark that little girls could not understand business, and she must not bother her head. Neither could she find any regular occupation about the house. Sarah Emily, who had conceived a great respect for Elizabeth since she had been living in the town, refused to let her soil her hands in the kitchen. It was too much of a come-downer, she declared, for a lady educated away up high the way Lizzie was to be sloppin' round with an apron on. Why didn't she sit still and read books, the way Jean did?