This was the beginning of that affair. Helen remembered the day well. A woman never forgets the sky and the weather of the day upon which love called her forth to the vicissitudes of love. But as things turned out, I doubt if she would mention that day now, as other women do when the bloom of their years has past. But at the best a courtship is strangely ephemeral, if you consider the consequences. It is like fugitive verses published to-day, gone to-morrow, like the fragrance of flowers blown upon a wind that passes and never returns. So much of it cannot be made into words; a glance of the eye, quick as light, revealing all; but who can translate the look or the long silences between lovers? Nature knows her business. The whole world, the heavens and the earth and the fullness thereof is an incantation made to ensnare lovers to her purpose. And not a word grows anywhere to betray this charm. You may be strong or weak, wise or simple, cynical, disillusioned, protected with all the knowledge of men, but there is no escape. Nature gets you at last; on honor or dishonor you must pay your debt to her in love. When you are done, nothing remains but your dust, a handful of something with which to fertilize love again--a little retail economy Nature makes in her procreating plans. The next day after this first day was a Sabbath. I do not believe in predestination, doctrinally speaking. The meaning of that term, I should say, was strictly human, and is derived from our short-winded conception of time, which does not exist either, except in the mortal sense. But by some prearranged prudence of Providence, by which all things come to pass whether we will or no, including the most intimate and personal things, the Cutters attended the same church that the remaining mother and daughter of the Adams family attended. It was a very good little church, glistening white within, shining white without, like an enameled bathtub with a roof and a steeple. I will not be sure, but my impression is that the denomination was Baptist. In any case, Helen Adams belonged to the choir. On this Sunday morning she sang a solo, Jerusalem the Golden. She had a fresh young voice, roomy and soft at the bottom, triumphantly high and keen at the top. She wore white as usual and little fluttering skylines of blue tied in a bow as usual. When she stood up to sing she lifted her eyes as if these eyes and this face were the words of a young morning prayer; she let go her beautifully crimped upper lip, opened her mouth as if this mouth were a rose bursting into bloom--and sang. I do not know if she sang well, having no skill in these matters; but it is certain that she looked like an angel. What I mean is that if you had no visual acquaintance with angels, you would have known at once that this was the very image of the way an angel should look.