"Remember that I long for you, dream of you, hope for you, believe in you, pray for you, and, above all else, love you, love you—love you. And in all the ways of Heaven and for always, I am thine.
"E."
XXIII
Betrothal
On the Hills by the Vineyard
Desolation lay upon the vineyard. The fairy lace had been rudely torn aside by invading storms and the Secret Spinners had entered upon their long sleep. The dead leaves rustled back and forth, shivering with the cold, when the winds came down upon the river from the hill. Caught, now and then, upon some whirling gust, the leaves were blown to the surface of the river itself, and, like scuttled craft, swept hastily to ports unknown.
Rosemary escaped from the house early in the afternoon. Unable to go to the Hill of the Muses, or up the river-road, she had taken a long, roundabout path around the outskirts of the village and so reached the hills back of the vineyard. The air of the valley seemed to suffocate her; she longed to climb to the silent places, where the four winds of heaven kept tryst.
She was alone, as always. She sighed as she remembered how lonely she had been all her life. Except Alden, there had never been anyone to whom she could talk freely. Even at school, the other children had, by common consent, avoided the solitary, silent child who sat apart, always, in brown gingham or brown alpaca, and taking refuge in the fierce pride that often shields an abnormal sensitiveness.
In Real Life