Sometimes, from my window, I have looked down on the river and the long yellow sand bar and the mystery of the opposite shore where I have never been, and I have felt a great pity that these things cannot know that they are these things. Sometimes, in the middle of a summer night, when the moon is so bright that one can see well within one's own soul, I have fancied that I have detected an aroma of consciousness, of definite self-wonder, in the Out-of-doors. Fleetingly I have divined it in the surprise of Dawn, the laughter of a blue Forenoon, the girlish shyness of Twilight. And this morning I wanted self-wonder for Miggy and Peter. What a pity that they could not see it all as I saw it: the Shelley-like boy cutting the grass and loving this girl, in her mother's gown. But you must not suppose, either, that I do not know how that vast unconsciousness of Nature and Love flows with a sovereign essence almost more precious than awareness.
"Miggy," I said presently, "Peter is not at work to-day. That is he cutting grass."
She looked out briefly.
"He's got two days off coming to him," she answered. "It's for overtime. This must be one of 'em. Have you read these stories?"
"Yes," I said, "I have. Miggy, don't you want to go and ask Peter to have lunch with us at twelve?"
"Oh, no, thank you," she dismissed this. "This isn't the day I see him."
"But wouldn't you like it?" I pressed the matter curiously. "Just we three at luncheon alone?"
She was turning the leaves of the manuscript and she looked up to set me right.
"Oh, you know," she said, "I don't know Peter that way at all. I just know him to have him walk home with me, or call, or go walking. Peter never eats with me."