--
If you will lend me the book," she continued, "I will read it
over again before I go to bed."
He shut the volume, handed it to her, and began to talk about
something else.
Mary rose to go.
"You will take tea with us, I hope, Miss Marston," said Godfrey.
But Mary would not. What she had heard was working in her mind
with a powerful fermentation, and she longed to be alone. In the
fields, as she walked, she would come to an understanding with
herself.
She knew almost nothing of the higher literature, and felt like a
dreamer who, in the midst of a well-known and ordinary landscape,
comes without warning upon the mighty cone of a mountain, or the
breaking waters of a boundless ocean.
"If one could but get hold of such things, what a glorious life
it would be!" she thought. She had looked into a world beyond the
present, and already in the present all things were new. The sun
set as she had never seen him set before; it was only in gray and
gold, with scarce a touch of purple and rose; the wind visited
her cheek like a living thing, and loved her; the skylarks had
more than reason in their jubilation. For the first time she
heard the full chord of intellectual and emotional delight. What
a place her chamber would be, if she could there read such
things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles of the
hour, the vulgar humor of Mr.
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