"How long?" and there was import in the tone of her voice.
"I must be at home to-morrow morning."
"No reprieve?"
I answered, "None,"—and turned the circlet of obligation upon my finger.
"I am glad you told me; I like limits; I wish to know the precise moment when my rainbows will disband. It's very nice, meeting Fate half-way; there's consolation in knowing that it will have as far to go as you on the return voyage."
I smiled; a little inward ripple of gladness sent muscle-waves to my lips. She noticed it, and her tone changed.
"I see, I see, my good little Anemone! You don't know how exultant it is to stand alone, above the forest of your fellows,—to lift up your highest bough of feeling,—to meet the Northland's fiercest courser that thinks to lay you low. Did you ever turn to see the expression with which the last leap of wind is met, the peculiar suavity of the bowing of the boughs, that says as plainly as ever did speaking leaves, 'You have left me myself'? You don't understand these things, you small wind-flower, that have grown sheltered from all storms!"
"One would think not, Miss Axtell, but"—and I paused until she bade me
"Go on."
"Perhaps it is vanity,—I hope not,—but it seems to me that I have a mirror of all Nature set into the frame of my soul. It isn't a part of myself; it is a mental telescope, that resolves the actions of all the people around me into myriads of motives, atomies of inducement, that I see woven and webbed around them, by the sight-power given. Besides, I am not an anemone,—oh, no! I am something more substantial."
"I see, very"; and before I could divine her intent, she had lifted up my face in both her hands and held my eyes in her own intensity of gaze, as, oh, long ago! I remember my mother to have done, when she doubted my perfect truth.