"I have been absent for some time, and only heard to-day that you are going away," he said.
"Yes," responded Thirza. "I am going away—to Europe."
"To seek your fortune?" said he, with a smile.
"No—to spend it," said Thirza, in the same manner. "I suppose that you, like Parson Smythers and the rest of Millburn, consider it an 'extry-ordinary proceeding,'"—this with a fair imitation of the reverend gentleman's peculiar drawl.
Madison smiled.
"Don't count me among your judges, I beg of you, Thirza," he responded, more gravely. "Perhaps I understand you better than you think."
She glanced quickly up into his face,—a handsome face, frank and noble in its expression.
"Understand me?" she repeated; "I don't think any one understands me. Not that they are to blame—I am hardly worth the trouble, I suppose. I know," she continued, moved by an impulse to unburden her heart to some one, "I know that people are discussing and condemning me, and it does not trouble me at all to know it; but I don't mind saying this much to you." She caught the last two words back between her lips, but not before they had reached the young man's ears. He glanced quickly into her downcast face, with a look full of eager questioning; but this Thirza did not see, for she had turned her eyes away in confusion. "You know what my life has been," she went on impetuously. "I have never had any youth. Ever since I was a child, I have toiled to keep body and soul together. I have succeeded in feeding the one; but the other has starved. I have weighed everything in the balance. I am all alone in the world—all I had to live for is—up there." She pointed over her shoulder toward the old burying-ground. "I may be foolish,—even selfish and wicked,—but I can't help it! I am going to leave everything behind me, all the work and all the worry, and give myself a holiday. For one whole year I am going to live—really live! After that, I can bear the old life better—perhaps!"
The girl was almost beautiful as she spoke, with the soft fire in her eyes and her cheeks aglow. Her voice was sweet and full, and vibrated like a harp-string. The young man beside her did not look at her. He walked steadily forward, gazing straight down into the dusty road, and striking out almost savagely with his cane at the innocent heads of the white clover which crowded up to the road-side.