"You are my first love-gift. I am going to send you to her, and she'll know she hasn't given her love, her beauty, her youth, to an unworthy or an obscure lover. She's given herself to me, Peter Champneys, and because she loves me I'll give her a name she can wear like a crown: I'll set her upon the purple heights!" She was at the far end of the Thatcher garden, behind the house and hidden from it, when he arrived with the canvas, which he hadn't dared entrust to any other carrier--he was too jealously careful of it. No, he told Mrs. Thatcher, it wasn't necessary to disturb her guest. Just allow him to place the canvas in Mrs. Riley's sitting-room. She would find it there when she returned. Mrs. Thatcher complied willingly enough. She liked the tall, black-bearded man whom shrewd old Grandma Baker couldn't praise sufficiently. "Excuse me for not goin' up with you, on account of my hands bein' in the mixin'-bowl. It's a picture, ain't it? You just step right upstairs and set it on the mantel or anywheres you like. I'll tell her you been here." And so he placed it on the mantel, where the north light fell full upon it, waved his hand to it, and went away. It would tell her all that was in his heart for her. It would explain himself. The Red Admiral would assure that! Anne had been having rather a troublesome time. She had written to Marcia and to Berkeley Hayden the night before, and the letters had been posted only that morning. She had had to be very explicit, to make her position perfectly plain to them both, and the letters had not been easy to write. But when she had finally written them, she had really succeeded in explaining her true self. There was no doubt as to her entire truthfulness, or the finality of this decision of hers. When she posted those letters, she knew that a page of her life had been turned down, the word "Finis" written at the bottom of it. She had tossed aside a brilliant social career, a high position, a great fortune,--and counted it all well lost. Her one regret was to have to disappoint Marcia. She loved Marcia. And she hoped that Berkeley wouldn't despise her. She was agitated, perturbed, and yet rapturously happy. She wished to be alone to hug that happiness to her heart, and so she had gone out under the apple-trees at the far end of the Thatcher orchard, and lay there all her long length in the good green grass. The place was full of sweet and drowsy odors. Birds called and fluted. Butterflies and bees came and went. She had never felt so close to Mother Earth as she did to-day, never so keenly sensed the joy of being alive. After a while she arose, reluctantly, and went back to the house and her rooms. She was remembering that she hadn't yet written to Jason, and she wanted Jason to know. Inside her sitting-room door she stopped short, eyes widened, lips fallen apart. On the mantel, glowing, jewel-like in the clear, pure light, herself confronted her. Herself as a great artist saw and loved her.