He lay along the grass, supporting himself on his left elbow, his cheek upon his hand, the other hand, still holding the big brush, had fallen across Thor’s back. His eyes were startled, as by an unexpected revelation, and as her glance touched them, sudden, glad light leaped from depth to surface. He would not release her regard—not even when the glow that succeeded the numbness of the thrill stole from limb to limb, and suffused her face, and all the forceful maiden nature battled with the magnetic compulsion. The sough of the spring breeze in the flower-laden branches, likened by Hester to the whispering surf upon island sands; the humming bees and twittering birds; the sun-warmed scent of apple blooms and white clover and the sweetbrier growing just without the canopy of the king apple tree; the faint flush of light strained through locked masses of blossoms, were, for those supreme moments, all the world—except that this man—God’s most glorious creation—spoke to her, although his lips were moveless, and that the stir of a new and divine life within her heart replied. “I am sure the time must be up!” said May yawningly. “Poor Hester is fast asleep, and my tongue aches with holding it so long.” Hester unclosed her eyes slowly, smiled dreamily, and essayed no denial. March was on his knees, collecting brushes and tubes into his color box. Hetty was folding a rug so much too heavy for her wrists that May sprang to seize the other end. “Why—are you chilly? Your fingers are like ice!” she exclaimed, as their hands met. “And how you shiver! I am afraid we have been selfish in keeping you out of doors so long!” The ague shook the mirth out of the nervous laugh with which Hetty answered: “Now that the strain of the week’s suspense and sittings is over, and the result of our joint labors is a pronounced success, I am a little tired. The spring is a trifle crude as yet, too,” she subjoined, speaking more glibly than usual. “By the time the sun reaches the tops of the trees, we begin to feel the dew fall. Hester, we must go in!” March took the handle of the wheeled chair from her. “That is too heavy for you on the thick grass. May, will you abide by the stuff until I come back?” On every other afternoon, Homer had come down at five o’clock to roll the carriage up the ascent. Hester lay among the pillows, her eyes again shut, and the reflection of the happy secret upon her face. Hetty walked mutely beside her. March liked the fine reserve that kept her silent and forbade her to risk another encounter of glances. She was all womanly, refined in every instinct. Crushing the young grasses with foot and wheel, and bowing under the stooping branches, they made their way to the gate in the parsonage fence. Homer shambled hurriedly down the walk to meet them. “Now”—he stammered, laying hold of the propeller of the chair—“I’d ’a bin yere sooner, but I had to go downtown on an arrant——”