BY his plate at the lunch table he discovered, the following day, a
small, lavender envelope stamped and addressed to Anthony Ball, Esq.
He slipped it hastily into his pocket, and managed but a short-lived
pretext of eating. Then, with the letter yet unopened, he left Ellerton,
and penetrated into the heart of the countryside.
He stopped, finally, under a fence that crossed a hill, on a slope
of wild strawberries. The hill fell away in an unbroken sweep of
undulating, blue-green wheat; trees filled the hollow, with a roof and
thread of silver water drawn through the lush leaves; on either hand
chocolate loam bore the tender ripple of young com; and beyond, crossed
by the shifting shadows of slow-drifting clouds, hill and wood and
pasture spread a mellow mosaic of summer.
He tore open the envelope with a reluctant delight. At the top of the
sheet E D was stamped severely in mauve. “My very dear,” he read. He
stopped, suddenly unable to proceed; the countryside swam in his vision;
he gulped an ecstatic, convulsive breath, and proceeded:
“It's too wonderful--I can't realize that you exist, and that I have
found you in such a great world. Isn't it strange how real dreams are;
just now the real world seems the dream, and my dear home, my mother,
shadows compared to the thoughts that fill my brain of you, you, you.
“But I am writing mostly to tell you something that, perhaps, you didn't
fully understand yesterday--and yet I think you must have--that, if you
really want me, I am absolutely your own. I couldn't help it if I wanted
to, and, oh, I don't want to! I let a man at Etretat kiss me, and I am
glad I did, for it made me understand that I must wait for you.
“I won't write any more now because my head aches. From Eliza who loves
you utterly.” Then he saw that she had written on the following page:
“Don't worry about money and the future; I have my own, all we shall
need for years, and we can do something together.”
He laid the letter beside him on the grass. The welling song of a
catbird sounded unsupportably sweet, and a peaceful column of smoke
rose bluely from the chimney below: it carried him in imagination to a
dwelling set in a still, green garden, where birds filled the branches
with melody, and Eliza and himself walked hand in hand and kissed. Night
would gather in about their joy, their windows would shine with the
golden lamp of their seclusion, their voices mingle... sink... sacred.
He dreamed for a long while; the sunlight vanished from the slope below
him, from the darkling trees, touched only the farthest hills with a
rosy glow. As the sun sank an errant air whispered in the wheat, and
scattered the pungent aroma of the wild strawberries. A voice called
thinly from the swales, and cows gathered indistinctly about a gate.
Anthony rose. The world was one vast harmony in which he struck the
highest, happiest note. Beyond the near hills the lilac glitter of the
Ellerton lights sprang palely up on the blue dusk. As he made his way
home, Anthony's brain teemed with delightful projects, with
anticipation, the thought of the house in the hollow--abode of love,
steeped in night.