That evening she sat up until it was late, thinking. She had begun to see life in the West rather differently since her first rose-colored impressions. She was beginning to realize the facts that her father had quoted to her. The shoddiness of that life had begun to make itself felt. She had believed in Loring with all the trust to which a reserved nature yields itself when it becomes impetuous, and his complete failure had been a deep shock to her. She had not forgotten him, however, though, had she analyzed her thoughts, she would have been puzzled to know why he had not passed from her memory. Now that he was to be brought into her life again, her thought of him grew deeper and more personal. She opened her trunk and drew out of it her journal of the past year. For an hour she sat reading over the pages, and there were certain pages which she reread. When she closed the book it was close to midnight. She sat staring out of the window, thinking, wondering. The light in her eyes was like the harbor lights veiled by night mist to the mariner homeward bound,—now flashing clear and lambent, now dim, brilliant with the seaward flash or soft in the afterglow. At length she rose as one tired of thinking; but as she brushed out the long waves of her hair she hummed softly the old refrain: “Young Frank is chief of Errington And lord o’ Langly Dale— His step is first in peaceful ha’ His sword in battle keen— But aye she let the tears doon fa’ For Jock o’ Hazeldean.” CHAPTER XVII