Ellinor Baxter laughed scornfully. “John would be a less spoiled citizen without you. You are wasting the best years of your life. Soon you will be thirty.” “I am thirty. This is my birthday.” I said it defiantly, because, uttered, it sounded so very, very ancient. Ellinor suddenly softened. “You look a young twenty-five. Some women begin to fade at twenty-five. Some mornings when you rush past to school you look eighteen—— “And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre. Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wildgrape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty——” “Ellinor!” But Ellinor was in deadly earnest. Her eyes were full of tears. “Child,” she said, “get away from here. Love, marry, fulfil your destiny.” For just a moment I stopped and shut my eyes, pretending that a brier had caught my skirt. With shut eyes I knew that deep in the emerald world about me the black gum flaunted its crimson leaves—emblem of change; that the corn in long, straight rows stood hardening in the ear; that the mountains, glistening chain on glistening chain, were shimmering in the morning light. Standing there, I saw more: October’s pageant; November’s dull, soft tones; the desolation and the grayness that is December mountains’ dim forms seen through curtains of rain; January’s white, white world—and then the surprise of a snowdrop, the warm, fragrant spring breath of the south wind shepherding flocks of snowy clouds. “I love it all,” I said. And I spoke the truth. Since that August Sunday now a month past, since that earthquake upheaval, I have basked in peace. “I am busy. Most of the year I wake with just the thought of scrambling into my clothes, swallowing my breakfast, and getting to the schoolroom in time. When it is winter it is almost dark when I get home; when it is spring I have my flowers. And there’s always John’s clothes to mend and my own to make and——” But with a gesture that was passionate Ellinor Baxter stopped me. “All this may satisfy at thirty, but it won’t feed a woman’s heart at forty. Then she feels the need of love—contact with a man’s broader life. The monotony, the emptiness of life as she lives it alone tortures at forty. I know, for I am thirty-eight. And if she finds this out at forty it is mostly too late. Men pass us by for fresher faces.” I did not know this new Ellinor Baxter who had lifted her mask and given me a peep at the real woman behind it, but for the first time in my life I loved her. * * * * *