“Now Olga understood that from beginning to end. Many times before she had tried to follow the talk at the table, but the words would come too fast, and she would fall away to her own manner of seeing things. This talk simplified many matters for her, and seemed greatly to be approved. So in the evenings she began to watch for _her_ guest up the long level road that led to Hamilton. All that summer Olga thought of it and watched, though she was very little and only five. Sometimes when it was not yet dark she would venture forth a few steps and stare up the long road, until the house of their distant but nearest neighbour was all blurred in the night. Just behind her cottage in the other direction, the road dipped into a ravine, and the trees grew up from it, shutting off the distance. No place could be more wonderful than the ravine at midday, for the shades were quickened with birds, bees, flowers and much beside that only Olga saw, but its enchantment was too keen for the evening, and the night came there very quickly. “Her Guest would never come from the ravineway, but from the long, open road--Olga was sure of this. Yet when stopping to think, she became afraid he would not be allowed to pass the neighbour’s house. Their little Paul was her frequent playmate, and Paul’s father and mother were most good and hospitable people, the last on the Hamilton road to let a stranger go by, without food and shelter. And Paul would be looking, for he was almost always interested in her things.... But perhaps they would be in at supper and not see the stranger; or perhaps he would not want to stop there, but would know that _she_ was watching. She made very certain that he would not get by her house unobserved. “Spring had come again. The pale blue hepaticas were peeping into bloom. There was one day that ended in Olga’s most wonderful night. The sun had gone down, but not the light. The sky was crowded with rich gold like the breast of the purple martin--flickerings of beautiful light in the air, as if little balls of happiness were bursting of themselves. The shadows were soft on the long road; the tiles of the neighbour’s low house were like beaten gold, and the perfume of the hyacinths flooded everywhere into the silence. All that heaven could ever be was in that broad splendour and sweetness--the ravine a soft purple stillness behind, and a faint mist of red falling in the distant gold.