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So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood.

The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but theirs,–and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not him, but his inheritance.

Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: “We know, you and we!” As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just going to milking, with clusters of shining pails.

“You’re up early,” said he. “Well, there’s nothin’ like the mornin’!”

“No,” answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who carries good news, “except night-time! There’s a good deal in that!” And while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran up to smooth her tumbled bed.

After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly called Jethro softly to one side.

“You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you.”

Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and Jethro’s own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest tree of all, she dropped his hand and faced him.

“Jethro,” she said, “we can’t do it. We can’t get married.”

He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand.

“Don’t you care about me?” he asked at length, haltingly; and again Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence.

“Oh, yes,” she said eagerly. “I do care, ever and ever so much. But it’s your folks I care about. It ain’t you. I’ve found it all out, Jethro. Things don’t al’ays belong to us. Sometimes they belong to them that have gone before; an’ half the time we don’t know it.”

Jethro laid a gentle hand upon her arm. “You’re all tired out,” he said soothingly. “Now you give up picking over things, and let me hire somebody. I’ll be glad to.”

But Dilly withdrew a little from his touch. “You’re real good, Jethro,” she answered steadily. She had put aside her exaltation, and was her old self, full of common-sense and kindly strength. “But I don’t feel tired, an’ I ain’t a mite crazed. All you can do is to ride over to town with Eli–he’s goin’ after he feeds the pigs–an’ take the cars from there. It’s all over, Jethro. It is, truly. I ain’t so sorry as I might be; for it’s borne in on me you won’t care this way long. An’ you needn’t, dear; for nothin’ between us is changed a mite. The only trouble is, it ain’t the kind of thing we thought.”

She looked in his eyes with a long, bright farewell glance, and turned away. She had left behind her something which was very fine and beautiful; but she could not mourn. And all that morning, about the house, she sang little snatches of song, and was content. The Joyces had done their work, and she was doing hers.