It was going down in a crimson flood that dyed the whole country-side a red that was like new-spilt blood. It was one of those atmospheric effects under which the most contradictory colors in nature are subdued to a common hue. One has at such times a sense of looking at the landscape through colored glass. The white and yellow farm-houses flamed a dull orange. Their windows glowed like brass reflecting fire. The very trees and grass were soaked in the strong dye of the sun. Ethan's steady pull took them swiftly on, out of sight of farms, into the wilder country. Still the girl sat with uplifted face. Her love of autumn and of sunsetting had been no sad reflective sentiment, but something more than common--eager, subtly exhilarated, joyous. To-day, stimulated and at the same time balked, she found in the splendor of the hour a sharper sense than ever of the drama in life, the essential poetry in human experience. "I think I must be growing old," she said, with a happy sigh. "What are the signs?" "I'm beginning to notice the scenery. I'm grateful to the sun." Her eyes fell suddenly on the clean-carved features opposite; the dark head and the pale ivory of the face seemed alone of all things in the responsive world to refuse to wear the livery of light. "Oh, I forgot," she said, "you don't like sunsets any more than you like autumn. Here's the mooring-place." He stopped his long, steady stroke, and paddled the boat under the overhanging trees. "On the contrary," he said, making fast, and looking the while through the branches to the conflagration in the west--"on the contrary, I've changed, too--'growing old,' perhaps, like you." He smiled and sat down, his eyes on the slow-sinking sun. "These, and scenes like them, are the conditions that reconcile me." "Reconcile! They lift me up so high that I am dizzy." She closed her eyes an instant, and then opened them with a fluttering smile. They seemed to have forgotten there had been any thought of going ashore. "It is so splendid and yet so calm," he said, in a low voice. "It sets me free from the burden and heat of the day." "It doesn't set _me_ free--not that I want to be set free. I love the burden and heat of the day. But this--_this_ sets me thrilling. It clutches me at the heart, and makes my breath taste sharp, like steel, against my tongue. This is the wonder-time of day." "Yes," he said, dreamily--"yes, in a sense, it is the wonder-time. No morning or high noon, anywhere up and down the world, can match this hour." "But it makes you sad," she said, resentfully, as though he had spoken an ill thing of some one dear. "No, I'm not sad any more; I'm reconciled. It is the moment when I can most easily forget my own existence, and feel melted into the general life." She turned away with flashing eyes. "Why are you so angry?" he said, softly, "or is it the sunset dyes you redder than it did?"