FullReads

He wondered where this feeling came from, and he looked into the upturned faces of the girls as if they were pansies. He wandered about the rooms with the Blakeslys, being bored by introductions, until at last Miss Powell came up the stairway with the last of the guests.

While the girls sang and went through some pretty drills Ware again studied Miss Powell. Her appeal to his imagination was startling. He searched for the cause of it. It could not be in her beauty. Certainly she was fine and womanly and of splendid physique, but all about her were lovely girls of daintier flesh and warmer color. He reasoned that her power was in her eyes, steady, frank as sunlight, clear as water in a mountain brook. She seemed unconscious of his scrutiny.

At last they began moving down the stairs and on to the other buildings. Ware and Blakesly waited for the ladies to come down. And when they came they were in the midst of a flood of girls, and Ware had no chance to speak to them. As they moved across the grass he fell in behind Mrs. Blakesly, who seemed to be telling secrets to Miss Powell, who flushed and shook her head.

Mrs. Blakesly turned and saw Ware close behind her, and said, “O Mr. Ware, where is my dear, dear husband?”

“Back in the swirl,” Ware replied.

Mrs. Blakesly artfully dropped Miss Powell’s arm and fell back. “I must not desert the poor dear.” As she passed Ware she said, “Take my place.”

“With pleasure,” he replied, and walked on after Miss Powell, who seemed not to care to wait.

How simply she was dressed! She moved like an athlete, without effort and without constraint. As he walked quickly to overtake her a finer light fell over the hills and a fresher green came into the grass. The daisies nodding in the wind blurred together in a dance of light and loveliness which moved him like a song.

“How beautiful everything is to-day!” he said, as he stepped to her side. He felt as if he had said, “How beautiful you are!”

She flashed a quick, inquiring glance at him.

“Yes; June can be beautiful with us. Still, there is a beauty more mature, when the sickle is about to be thrust into the grain.”

He did not hear what she said. He was thinking of the power that lay in the oval of her face, in the fluffy tangle of her hair. Ah! now he knew. With that upward glance she brought back his boy love, his teacher whom he had worshiped as boys sometimes will, with a love as pure as winter starlight. Yes, now it was clear. There was the same flex of the splendid waist, the same slow lift of the head, and steady, beautiful eyes.

As she talked, he was a youth of seventeen, he was lying at his teacher’s feet by the river while she read wonderful love stories. There were others there, but they did not count. Then the tears blurred his eyes; he remembered walking behind her dead body as it was borne to the hillside burying ground, and all the world was desolate for him.

He became aware that Miss Powell was looking at him with startled eyes. He hastened to apologize and explain. “Pardon me; you look so much like a schoolboy idol–I–I seem to see her again. I didn’t hear what you said, you brought the past back so poignantly.”

There was something in his voice which touched her, but before he could go on they were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Blakesly and one of the other teachers. There was a dancing light in Mrs. Blakesly’s eyes as she looked at Ware. She had just been saying to her husband: “What a splendid figure Miss Powell is! How well they look together! Wouldn’t it be splendid if—-“

“Oh, my dear, you’re too bad. Please don’t match-make any more to-day. Let Nature attend to these things,” Mr. Blakesly replied with manifest impatience; “Nature attended to our case.”