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The boy nodded gently; and she saw his eyes slowly closing once more; he was not yet half awake So she went past him on tiptoe to the , turned the handle, and opened the white tall fraush of air, sweet as wine, laden with the s flowers and wet lawns, stole in to arden, broke into song, interrupted himself, chatteredcurve behind the yews The very world itself of beast and bird was still but half awake, and from the hamlet outside the fence, beyond the trees, rose as yet no skein of smoke and no sound of feet upon the cobbles

For the time no future presented itself to her The arded indeed the fact of the old man asleep in the inn, of the old lady upstairs, but she rehearsed nothing of what should be said to them by and by She did not even think of the hour, or whether she should go to bed presently for a while She traced no sequence of thought; she scarcely gave a glance at as past; it was the present only that absorbed her; and even of the present not more than a fraction lay before her attention--the wet lawn, the brightening east, the cool air--those with the joy that had coain cah behind her; and a moment afterwards there was a step upon the floor, and Laurie hi for an instant whether his rave, tired, boyish face was answer enough He arden

He was the first to speak

"Maggie," he said, "I think we had best never speak of this again to one another" She nodded, but he went on-"I understand very little I wish to understand noneed be said to anybody You agree?"

"I agree perfectly," she said

"And not a word to my mother, of course"

"Of course not"

The tere silent again

And now reality--or rather, the faculties of memory and consideration by which reality is apprehended--were onceto stir in her ently now, and without perturbation, to recall what had passed, the long crescendo of the previousht--even the roar and flare of the storht for the conscious life and identity of herself through which she had struggled And it seemed to her as if the stors clean again, and discharged an oppression of which she had been but half conscious Neither was it herself alone who had e after rain"; but the boy that stood by her seemed to her to share in her joy