But just before the roads were really dry from the spring mud, before the falling of the apple blossoms told them that they might begin to watch with some certainty of fulfillment, something happened to the eldest of the Wescotts. It was, in fact, the same curious Thing to which she had been exposed on the day of Mary Christmas’ arrival, but from which she had been saved by the fortunate intervention of her mother’s blue gingham. This time, however, the attack came when she was alone. She had gone into a near-by pasture to hunt for early violets, and on the way home had climbed to the top of a great boulder, from whence she could look far out over the fields and woods. It was a favorite resting-place of hers, and until this particular day she had experienced only pleasure and satisfaction in the exertion of the stiff climb up the rock, in the sense of accomplishment when she had reached the top, when she could rest her warm, tired body against the trunk of a stunted pine and look out over the country. Through a vista in the fir trees she could see a sloping hillside in the vivid green of early spring, and on its summit a wild crab-apple tree, standing against the bluest sky imaginable and flushed with the pink of opening petals. Then it happened! The beauty of that wild crab-apple, in which for years she had taken only pleasure, began to hurt her with a pain as real and sharp as any other pain. Before this it had been just a lovely thing to which their father had pointed with his cane, so that they might not miss it as they walked on a Sunday afternoon. Now, in one incomprehensible instant, it had become lovely unto tears! Mary Wescott was almost frightened as she sat on the boulder and looked at the crab-apple tree. She was vaguely fearful lest this sadness which its sudden beauty had made her feel would stay with her and lend an aching loveliness to other long-accustomed, perfectly familiar things. The years from thirteen on seemed all at once dim, perilous ways to her. If one were made to feel pain and sadness by things which had hitherto given only joy, how could one walk safely through the weeks and months to come? Feeling a sudden longing for the security of the Wescott kitchen and the very tangible occupation of setting the table, she climbed down the boulder and ran all the way home. She did not say anything to her mother about the crab-apple tree; she was beginning, curiously enough, to understand that there are Things that people do not tell, even to mothers. Mrs. Wescott, however, was a wise woman. Although she brought up her children before temperaments were discovered or Child Guidance Clinics and project methods were invented, she knew perfectly well that Mary’s age was an Age of Discovery; and when she saw Mary’s eyes she gave her an extra dose of sulphur and molasses, and suggested that they spend the afternoon making candy for the church sale.