Master of the Vineyard

Contents

CHAPTER		PAGE
I—	The Hill of the Muses	[1]
II—	Brown Alpaca	[14]
III—	The Crystal Ball	[29]
IV—	April's Sun	[45]
V—	The House of the Broken Heart	[61]
VI—	More Stately Mansions	[76]
VII—	A Letter and a Guest	[91]
VIII—	"Whom God Hath Joined"	[106]
IX—	A Spring Day	[122]
X—	A Little Brown Mouse	[137]
XI—	The Hour of the Turning Night	[154]
XII—	Asking—Not Answer	[170]
XIII—	The Stain of the Rose	[185]
XIV—	The Light Before a Shrine	[200]
XV—	The Inlaid Box	[215]
XVI—	One Little Hour	[230]
XVII—	The Last Tryst	[245]
XVIII—	Starbreak	[260]
XIX—	If Love Were All	[273]
XX—	"The Lady Traveller"	[288]
XXI—	The Weaving of the Tapestry	[302]
XXII—	Each to His Own Work	[315]
XXIII—	Betrothal	[330]
XXIV—	The Minister's Call	[345]
XXV—	A Wedding	[359]

I

The Hill of the Muses

From the Top of the Hill

The girl paused among the birches and drew a long breath of relief. It was good to be outdoors after the countless annoyances of the day; to feel the earth springing beneath her step, the keen, crisp air bringing the colour to her cheeks, and the silence of the woods ministering to her soul.

From the top of the hill she surveyed her little world. Where the small white houses clustered in the valley, far below her, she had spent her five-and-twenty years, shut in by the hills, and, more surely, by the iron bars of circumstance. To her the heights had always meant escape, for in the upper air and in solitude she found detachment—a sort of heavenly perspective upon the affairs of the common day.