He repeated the words, as if their music, but half understood, sounded sweet in his ears. "The land of content?"
"They are Mother Cary's words," she told him. "Aren't they like her—so quaint and true, and so wise! She told me once that we must all know doubt and pain and sorrow, if we would cross the threshold of happiness, into the land of content."
He said nothing; but she knew from his look that he was sharing her vision.
"Cecilia—Eleanor—they think they know it, too, I suppose—poor dears!"
Ogilvie threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked at her with a smile in his eyes—the smile, half tenderness and half pity, that we give to a beloved child who thinks he has just discovered a new truth.
"And you are the only one who knows anything about it?" he teased.
"Oh, you, too!" she said.
"Thanks! I'm glad you let me in!" But he grew serious again. "Do you know," he said, "I have a suspicion that your land of content is wherever love is?"
She brushed his shoulder with her cheek. "I shouldn't wonder!" she said.
But White Rosy was not interested in such speculation. Evidently having decided that dinner was more to be desired than the view, she set off down the road, at her briskest trot, toward the valley. They laughed; but neither would have thought of restraining White Rosy when she had taken the control of affairs upon herself.