“Merely the effect of softening things–for the soul as well as the eye–through the eye, indeed, to the soul. Our atmosphere here does that–softens the houses, and the trees, and the cattle, and the mountains, and the distant reaches. It softens our nights, too. Perhaps you have noticed it? How everything appears shrouded in a kind of hazy, mellow, translucent something that somehow reacts upon you? I have. And I believe that is the secret of one’s wanting to remain in the country, once he has exposed himself to it. It is a kind of spell–a hypnosis. When out of it one wants to get back into it.
“I know I felt it when I was East, attending school,” she went on, quietly. “Living always in this atmosphere, I somehow had forgotten its charm–as one will forget all subtle beauty unless frequently and forcibly reminded of it. But in the East I missed it, and found myself restless and anxious to get back into it. Indeed, I felt that I must get back or die! So one day, when your Eastern spirit of sudden change was upon me, I packed and came home. It was a year short of my degree, too. But I could not remain away another day–simply had to get back–and back I came. My degree–my sheepskin”–she was smiling–“couldn’t hold me!”
“Then you’ve spent some time in the East?” he asked, tentatively.
“Yes,” she replied, “that much–three years. And I didn’t like it.”
“Why?” he asked, a little surprised.
She regarded him curiously. He saw a look of mild annoyance in her eyes, one that seemed to tell of her inability to understand so needless a question.
“I just didn’t,” she rejoined, after a moment. “I discovered that you Easterners value things which are diametrically opposite to the things we value, and that you value not at all those things which we value most of all.”
He had to laugh. “What are they?” he wanted to know.
For an instant she showed shyness. “Oh, I can’t say,” she declared, finally. “Some day I may tell you.”
Stephen realized that it must be serious. He was hesitating whether to press her further, when he saw her tighten her reins, put spurs to her horse, and go flashing off in the direction of the mountain trail. As she dashed off he heard her call out: