"Of course, it's the main thing," Elizabeth assented, "but I'm afraid if it came to a choice, I'd rather be pretty, auntie, and so would most people." She ended with a light little laugh, and Miss Cornelia, in spite of her principles, attempted no rebuke.
The look of gaiety soon faded from Elizabeth's face. With a quick, impatient little sigh, she walked over to the window, and looked out into the night. It was still and sultry; heavy storm clouds were gathering and obscured the sky. The old elm trees, growing close about the house, cast sombre shadows; they seemed to keep out what little air there was. Elizabeth, as she leaned her hot cheek against the cool glass of the window-pane, felt again a sense of stifling, of being in a cage. It was useless to beat her wings; life was outside, but she could not reach it. "Oh, I would give anything in the world," she thought "just to breathe, to be free, to know what life is."
Suddenly she turned around with a start. There was a voice in the hall; some one spoke her name. A moment later a young man was advancing towards her across the dimly-lighted room. Mechanically she went to meet him. She did not think of her aunts, she did not think of anything but his presence.
"Have I—come too soon?" Paul Halleck asked, as he took her hand.
Chapter VI
Elizabeth drove again, a few weeks later, through shady, fragrant lanes, on her way to Bassett Mills. It was early in the morning, but the sun was already hot. The wild-roses along the road-side had mostly departed, the grass in the fields had a parched look. It was a long time since any rain had fallen, and the roads were thick with dust. All the freshness of the early summer had faded. But for these signs of premature blight and the scorching effect of the sun, Elizabeth seemed to have no eyes.
She drove along in a happy dream. There was a brilliant color in her cheeks, a radiant light in her eyes. She bloomed like a rose that has unfolded every petal to the summer sunshine. The fields through which she passed were not the familiar pasture-lands and "places" that skirted the road to Bassett Mills; they were the flowery meadows of poetic Arcadia, on the road that led to Paradise.