Then he turned his head and looked into her eyes. They were the sweetest eyes he had ever seen. He had never before looked deep into any human eyes. Then, home and circumstances, field and world, all became to him a dream, and only this maiden without a voice, this voice floating into empty air, became to him his world. Outside, the apple-blossoms floated down from her trees to his land, the potatoes lay unplanted. Vainly that night the cows waited for his hand to milk them. The real had become the shadow; he was in a new world. Illusive voice! vanishing shape to deal with! Within, a wild delicious hope that he, he might at last unite voice and shape. So from the plough-boy is the poet born. [Illustration] THE SCARF. It is interesting to see a man handle delicate fabrics. The mind involuntarily estimates the strength of the man in its superabundance, comparing it to the task. The contrast makes it picturesque. Mark watched his friend Rob as he sat drawing the thin, Eastern-looking scarf through his hands; his hands were good to look at--firm and shapely. The scarf was sheer, almost of the texture of a cobweb; it was white, with an ivory tint where the folds gave it substance. It clung now and then to his hand, or yielded reluctantly as he drew it from his sleeve where it had floated. There was silence in the room, emphasized by the restless throbbing of the city below. The sails out on the bay dipped and courtesied in the fresh evening wind, and the ripples flushed red under the slanting sun. ‘Rob,’ said the older man, ‘all the same, I don’t like it; it isn’t like you.’ ‘I am sorry you don’t like it, and it _is_ like me,’ said the other, slowly. ‘I have always counted acts as the man. How would you construe it if I said: “Your acts I like, but I don’t like you”? That isn’t reasonable.’ ‘You are splitting hairs, and I can’t match you at that. What I mean in plain English is, that I don’t see why your finding a scarf should necessitate or excuse you for breaking an engagement.’ ‘I didn’t find the scarf; it found me. And I didn’t break the engagement; an engagement, to my thinking, is not breakable; breaking suggests force; an engagement dissolves. What is it but the outward wording of an inward state of mind existing between two mutually attracted people? the state of mind being changed--lo!--pff!’ ‘You exasperate me beyond words, Rob, with your this and your that, all of it as thin as your scarf; and, what is worse, you do not seem to feel the gravity of it all, not in the least. You say in August, “Mark, congratulate me, I am the happiest man alive; I am going to be married.” In October you say, “Mark, I am a subject for congratulation, I am a disengaged man.” ‘As a friend of both yours and Mabel’s, I ask why, and you answer by holding up that miserable, dangling scarf, and say: “This is why; I found this, and I am going across the water to find the owner.”’