"I knew the flowers; I knew the leaves; I knew The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn On those long rank dark wood walks drenched with dew Leading from lawn to lawn." I quoted them to her and she responded to them; wanted to know the poet's name and more of his work; and as the autumn mist lay heavy on the lower pastures and the heavy fragrance of the autumn woods filled the air, I repeated to her those other lines of his: "The woods decay; the woods decay and fall, The vapors weep their burthen to the ground; Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only, cruel immortality consumes Here at the Eastern limit of the day----" She put a hand on my arm and stopped me: "What is that again, 'Me only, cruel----'" I repeated the line to her. "What a subject," she said; "not for a Tithonus--no; what a thought to work into my group!" I saw her meaning: Man might subdue Nature to his use; what then? Was he to be nevertheless forever consumed by immortality? Here was the limit to his triumph; its shadow and reverse. "What is the meaning of it all!" she said. "We are unhappy, do what we may, and it is out of our very unhappiness that we find something that replaces happiness--a sort of divine sorrow." We had by this time traversed the wood and stood on a height which commanded the now deserted colony buildings. The sun was well up on the horizon; the birds hopping silently in the boughs, their spring and summer songs over; but the torrent filled the air with its noisy music as it dashed down the hillside, and beyond we saw it meandering in peaceful curves among the meadows. "It is very beautiful," she said. "After all, there is joy enough in beauty, and it is no small thing"--she was looking absently over the meadows as she repeated--"it is no small thing that we can by art add to it." "It is a mission of which you can well be proud," said I. She looked at me and smiled gratefully. As we returned I felt that she had shaken off some of the sorrow with which she had started. CHAPTER XVII DESIGNS ON ANNA OF ANN