There were pictures outside too and pleasant ones. From the south window, straight down the street, the houses and trees and the brown spire of the Methodist church stretched away--roofs and gable ends and the enormous tufty heads of the elm trees that half hung over them. At the back of these houses, the eye went uninterruptedly over meadows and fields to the belt of woods which skirted at a little distance the line of the shore from the Lighthouse to Barley Point--here and there a break through which a schooner might be seen standing up or down the Sound; elsewhere only its topsails might be discerned above the woods. The western window took in the break where Barley Point lay; and further on in the southwest a distant glimpse of the Sound, with the little brown line of Monongatesak Point. The lane leading to the shore ran off due west, with houses, gardens, orchards, bordering it and spotting the country generally. A fair country--level and rich--all the range west and northwest was uninterrupted smooth fields; the eye had full sweep to the wide horizon; the dotting of trees, barns and houses, only enriched it, giving the sweet air of peaceful and happy occupation. Faith's place was the deep low sill, or seat, of that western window. There often Faith's book rested, while on the floor before it the reader sat. This time the book was near finished, and a few more leaves turned over changed the 'near' into 'quite.' Faith stood then considering the books. The name of Prescott on another volume had tempted her, for she had taken it down and considered the title page; before settling to it, Faith laid her hand on one of another set not yet much examined; a set of particular outside beauty. But what was the inside? For Faith stood by the cupboard door, not looking here and there, but leaf by leaf walking into the middle of the book. Faith rested the volume on the shelf and turned over more leaves; and at last dropped down by her window seat, laid the book there, put her cheek on her hand as usual, a cheek already flushed, and lost herself in the very beams of the afternoon sun. It might have been a dream, it might have been a vision (only that _vision_ it was not)--it might have been reality; wrapped up in her book, what should Faith know? Yet when some crisis was turned over with the leaf, and the real world began to supplant the unreal, Faith started up and looked round. Had she heard a step? a rustling of paper on the table? The door was firmly shut, the shadowy corner near by had lost the sunbeams, but was else unchanged; the table looked just as before--unless--Had there been a letter lying there when she came in?--Faith never could tell. The door opened now, however, and Mrs. Derrick entered--peering in somewhat anxiously.