“No, not with Mr. Dunreath,” replied Mildred quickly, and throwing her head back she clasped her hands over her knee, swaying back and forth in the firelight. Then she stopped again. I asked no more questions, for there was a look in her eyes and a droop to the sensitive mouth which meant I knew not what. Was it possible that this woman, who seemed so enthusiastically absorbed in her plans and so cheerful and gay, was really carrying about with her a secret heart-ache? I had watched her curiously as we had been in society together, and had been amused at her absolute lack of coquetry and matter-of-fact way of talking with gentlemen, and, on the other hand, at her semi-consciousness that she must try not to say too much about her theories and hobbies, and to “learn to talk small talk,” as she said. I, who had had my fill of small talk, and whom the late years were beginning to teach some serious lessons, liked much better her simplicity and unusual earnestness about things. Her bookishness, too, which at first I had rather dreaded, did not mean pedantry or dullness. She had read but few books, she told me; far less than I. She once showed me in her diary her list of books for the past year. There were only six: Plato’s “Republic,” “Wilhelm Meister,” Stanley’s “History of the Jews,” Thackeray’s “Newcomes,” Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty,” and a volume of Fichte.
“I like to be acquainted with the best people,” she once said; “there is no reason why one should put up with the second-rate ones when one can have the best.”
“But it is not every one who can get the best society,” said I, not understanding in the least what she meant.
“Every one who can read can have the best friends of all ages,” she replied. And they were her friends. But I am digressing.
“I will tell you all about it,” said Mildred, with her eyes still fixed on the coals. “There is no reason why I should not, though I never told any one before, and I have hardly acknowledged it to myself. I think I was in love; yes, I think I really was—in love.
“It happened in this way. I had gone down to the Fitchburg station to take the early morning train for Concord. By the way, were you ever at Concord?” she asked abruptly.
“What?” I answered, “Concord, New Hampshire?”
“No, our own Massachusetts Concord; the Concord of Emerson and Hawthorne and Thoreau and the Alcotts. I had been there but once before, but since that time it has been a sort of Mecca of mine, and I have made many a pilgrimage there.
“I was going out to the Concord School of Philosophy, not, however, for any special reason. I didn’t know and didn’t care to know anything about philosophy, but I thought it might be fun to see for once the long-haired men and short-haired women congregate and talk, as the papers said, about the ‘thisness of the then and the whichness of the where.’ Besides, I wanted to visit Hawthorne’s grave. I was full of his romances then.
“At the station I met my bosom-friend Julia Mason. ‘How fortunate!’ she exclaimed. ‘Here is my cousin, bound for the Summer School, too. You must philosophize together.’ She introduced us to each other, and then hastened to take her own train, while the young man and I made our way together to the express train for Concord.