Formerly, when saddish longings and presentiments would sweep over the wild rose Thurley, she had tramped through the pine woods as sturdily as a soldier under his captain’s orders, tramping, tramping, tramping up through the amphitheater of hills which lay outside the town. Finally, she would come upon a pasture clearing and here she would sit, exhausted but filled with sweet contentment, at the “top of the world” she fondly called it, looking down at the little village which seemed a cardboard play-town and dreaming of the day when she should stand at the top of the world to sing and all the cardboard towns in the universe should listen and applaud. In New York, Thurley took another method when pessimism interrupted common sense routine. She went to the piano and practised until her throat gave warning to cease and she could again face the world as the wild-rose-with-a-prophecy-of-the-hothouse-variety Thurley, baby of the great “family,” an interesting young goddess who seldom voiced an opinion but who could sweep away opinions if she sang a ballad (unbeknownst to her present audience) with thoughts of Dan or Philena or the old days in the wagon as the inspiration! During those effervescent moods of abandon which fairly intoxicated all those who saw Thurley under their spell—back in the Corners—she had always rushed down to the emporium and coaxed Dan away on a frolic—a picnic, if summer, or skating, if winter. They would sit, these two, on the porch of a deserted lake mansion dreaming dreams of a lyric quality with a sincerity which made both the boy and the girl the better for having dreamed them! Thurley would weave garlands of wild flowers—Dan gathering them—and she would come home to Betsey Pilrig, her cheeks like roses and her eyes like stars, singing a spring song and causing Betsy to lapse into Ali Baba’s favorite expression, “Land sakes and Mrs. Davis—Thurley, be you from another world?” The joyous moods, these days, came very seldom. To some degree they happened when Ernestine told her that Hobart was pleased with her progress or when Polly Harris kissed her and said she was a little sister to the great; some faint imitation of them was experienced when Caleb took her motoring and told her his humorous troubles or when she went with Miss Clergy and Hobart to the first opera—“Rigoletto”—and saw with the grave, conceited eyes of youth herself outshining the present _Gilda_—herself standing with outstretched arms to acknowledge the applause. The wild joy was felt for half an instant when Collin Hedley said he would paint the infant before her début—there would be no fun at all in painting her when she was famous and unapproachable, waving engagement tablets at a mere artist.