Then she grimly set her strong, white teeth. With all the getting and relinquishing, however, she never forgot to laugh, and her courageous cheerfulness won for her more than she realized while she was learning the curves of her Road.
And then she was accepted. No one but herself had ever doubted her triumph, but when she first learned the verdict she was wild with delight and could hardly wait for her "hours off" to tell Boswell all about it.
She was "capped" at last. No hard-won crown was ever appreciated more than that white trifle which rested like a bit of snow upon the "rusty hair" of Priscilla Glenn.
Before the little mirror in her own bedchamber, on that first victorious day, she posed and confided to her appreciative reflection.
"So this is Priscilla Glenn of the In-Place?" she whispered. "I simply can't believe it! No one else would believe it either; and you are not the same. You never will be again what you once were."
The flush of excitement showed plainer now than of yore, for the clear, dark skin had taken on the delicacy of the city's tint. The eyes were deep and grave, for already they had witnessed the mystery of life and death. They had smiled down at pain-racked motherhood; had held, in calm courage, many an outgoing soul. Priscilla had a closer vision than she once had had when she dreamed her dreams of what lay beyond the Secret Portage and the Big Bay.
The reflection nodded acknowledgment to all that the excited brain affirmed. Then suddenly:
"Why, Priscilla Glenn, you are crying! And for—which?"
The quaint expression brought a smile.
"You are homesick, Priscilla Glenn, homesick for what you have never had! That's the matter with you. You want some one to go to and tell about this, but in all the world there isn't any one who could understand. You poor, poor dear! What would your father and mother think of you? There, now, never mind. You are only a—blue and white nurse. Even Master Farwell and Mr. Boswell could not understand; but a woman could. Some woman! She would know what it means to be free at last and have something, quite your own, with which to hew and cut your own road; yes, your own road, right along to—to the end, just as old Pine used to cut the new trails. It's the standing up straight at last on your own roots like the dear little white birch in the Place Beyond the Winds. A woman could understand, but no one else."