It seemed as if some of the maple boughs had taken fire, they kindled up so like living flame. The fruit of a frost-grape vine that had clambered up one of the slender elms overhead, took a richness from the atmosphere and hung amid the leaves like clustering amethysts growing dusky in the shadow, and when they left it the hemlock log which they had occupied was flecked with gleams of light, that lay among its soft green like a delicate embroidery of gold.
"It is so very beautiful," said Mary, looking around, "I hate to go yet."
"But it will be dark and the hill is steep," persisted Isabel, less enthralled by the scene. "Do hurry, the sun is sinking fast—we will come every day next week, just as soon as school is out."
Mary drew a deep breath and followed. Isabel led the way out of the woods.
The next time Mary went there it was alone, for in the morning Mrs. Farnham left for the city, with scarcely an hour's notice—and a week from that time Isabel Chester was entered as a scholar in one of the most fashionable boarding-schools in New York.
Mary Fuller continued in her school, pursuing a strangely desultory course of studies, but improving greatly both in intellect and health. Where her heart urged the effort, her progress was wonderful, and it was not three months before the most neatly written letters that went out from the village post-office, were known to be in Mary Fuller's handwriting.
Joseph Esmond and Isabel Chester, these were her only correspondents, and she was indeed a proud girl when the answers came directed entirely to herself. That day was an epoch in Mary's life.
Sometimes Mary broke over the rules of the school by drawing profiles and rude landscapes in her copy-book and on the slate, till the teacher, detecting her one day, examined the productions with a smile, and gave her a few rudimental lessons in drawing. These rough efforts of her pencil happened to come under Judge Sharp's observation, and he who never forgot the smallest thing that could make others happy, brought her some brushes and a box of water-colors from the city.
True genius requires but little encouragement, and most frequently develops itself against opposition. This little box of paints and pencils was enough to bring forth a latent talent, and the enthusiasm that had exhausted itself in tears of delight on the hill-side, grew into a power of creation. This beautiful development became a strong bond of sympathy between her and the boy-artist, Joseph Esmond. In truth, Mary was drawing many sources of happiness around her, as the good can never fail of doing.
But we cannot follow this strange child through her school life, so monotonous, and yet full of incident, or what seemed such to her inexperience. All studies that she undertook were singularly broken up and independent. Indeed, I much doubt if regular methodical teaching can ever be applied to a nature like hers. Such organisms generally study through the taste and heart.