While Caroline Was Growing

er the sleeping streets; the aftertones vibrated plaintively. Caroline stirred restlessly, tossing off t

Six!" the big

, pink legs over the edge. Her eyes were op

n! Ei

leather barefoot sandals and slipp

n!" moane

t poured through the wide-open window, and ran her hands like

eve

une, dropped easily to the level of the kitchen-ell, and, slipping down onto the massive trunk of the old wistaria, fitted accustomed feet into its curled niches and clambered d

is soft tail about her little feet, a sudden impulse caught her, and she started swiftly through the wide backyard, bending to a broken gap in the privet hedge, cutting diagonally across the neighboring g

ck, swinging pace, the fruit of much walking,

like Japanese pictures on the white roadway. Except for the child and the cat, no living being moved, as far as the eye could see; on

rew a long breath, and woke with a frightened gasp. Before her stretched the pale, curving road; above her the spangled sky throbbed and glittered; the ear

topping, with one lifted paw, his green,

she whispered, "when did we

by: the cat pr

s'pose you're only in my dream. If I was really here, I'd be frightened to death, prob'ly, but if it's just

the sleeping nests, now and then a distant owl hoot. A sudden gust of honeysuckle, so strong that it was like a friendly, fragrant b

ove, and flung screening tendrils over an entwined pair that paused just inside the gate. The girl's white, loose sleeves fell back from her round a

mething woke and stirred in her, faint and vague, but alive now,

lung about suddenly and walked back toward the house, after a low, happy protest. The cooing of some drowsy pigeons in the stable on the ot

her, the friendly, powdered stars had been above her long enough to accustom her to their winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night had sounded in her ears till they comforted and reassured her; the vast and empty field stretches meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a sudden delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a rolling meadow and ran at full speed do

ing in a bewitched abandon, around

eet clover, she pante

estling cat. "If I can't do like the boys do, I don't want to stay home-the fellows laugh

rred app

ers!" she mourned, softly

sat up and stared about her: such cries did not come from open fields. Hardly a stone's throw from her there was a small knoll, and behind it what might have been a large, projecting boulde

f peeping neighbors, for only the moon and the night moths found them out, and the simple bedroom

ling across her cheek, and lifted up with careful slowness the tiny creature that wailed in it. Beside her, as he supported himself anxiously on his elbow, the broad chest and shoulders of her young husban

er the woman's face; the man's long arm wrapped around his wealth, at once protecting and defiant; his head flung back against the world, while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he grasped. Th

her forever, and frightened longing for the motherhood that life was holding for her. No longer an infant, not yet a woman, this creature that was both felt the helplessness of one, the yearning of the other, and as s

's t

ng darkness, as the lamp went out and a dark, scudding mackerel cloud flew over the moon. Instinctively she fled softly down the knoll, instinctively she dropped behin

t out here. But I thought I saw something white besi

he road that gleamed white, far on the other side of the cottage. Panting, she won it, crossed it, and fairly safe behind the low growth of waysid

eir course, and they skirted it more slowly, peering continuously into its jeweled depths. With them their hurrying shadows, black on the road, fainter on the grass, fled ceaselessly, hardly more quiet than they. A very intoxication of fear, a panic terror almost de

ing faun or startled dryad dancing under the moon could have belonged more utterly than she to the fragrant, mysterious world around her. The bright, bustling life of every day,

ad dappled moon shadows, they made for a whispering, clucking fountain that threw a diamond column straight toward the stars, only to break at the top into a beaded mist and clink musically back to its marble basin. Its rhythmic tinkle, the four ball-shaped box trees at either corner, the carved whiteness of the marble basin, and the massive pillar-fronted stone house beyond it, all spread a glamour of fairyland

r a moment a chill fear struck to the bottom of her little heart: was some weird spell aimed at her, some malignant eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the spot, the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her forehead, while the droning s

n the center of this window there sat in a high, carved chair a very old woman. She was carefully dressed in deep black, with pure white ruffles at her neck and around her shrunken wrists, and a lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were on a carved foot-stool, and a quaint s

n our dwelling place

er thou hast formed the earth and the world, ev

ight. It marked a bed of yellow tulips with a broad

rench window, and in the center of this window th

are but as yesterday when it is p

with the silver lamplight; the marble sill of t

years as a tal

reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their stre

ange calm. A breath from the very caverns of the infinite stole out along the path of that silver lamp, and

stone, full in the path of the lamp. The heavy, wrinkled lids raised themselves from the deep-set eyes, and t

y! O

e never

you,

evoured the litt

send you. I'm all ready. Don't you think I'm afraid

; a nameless awe held he

s voice went on, "and hardly any at night. They're very kind, a

stars; the silver lamp, burned lowe

hink of that! Did they think I wouldn't know my baby

ntly on her breast. Her hands lay clasped on the great volume; her deep-set eyes were closed. She read no more from the bo

g a running brook with a waterfall in it close at hand, drove everything else from her mind. The grounds had completely changed their character by now: the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and the little path, no longer graveled, wound through the wild woodland. Here and there a boulder blocked the way; the undergrowt

al and quiet for a waterfall, tempted Caroline on, and she pressed forward hastily, lost in speculation, when a sudd

ddenly, not ten feet from her, and stared dumfounded a

e. A spray of wild azalea wreathed her dark tumbled hair, and Rufus, his plumy tail curled around her feet in the shadow, and his green eyes flaming, might have been a baby pa

e back of the other with it till

things!" he said so

ward almost

e not possible," he muttered, "but now I

asing her a little before he punished her-his pleasant, low voice and whimsical manners brought her back sudd

, again slightly shortening the distance between them, "you and the little cu

overed the space between them

I have-good heaven

oline," she murmured wr

out into the

ughtfully; "dear me, you gave me quite a turn, C

fly. "I was-I was taking a walk. Where

an ch

said, "and here they are; a child and a cat. If you will

k, and she saw inside it a narrow cot, covered with a coarse blue blanket, a roughly made table, spread with a game of solitaire, and a small leather trunk. On the further side of the tent there smo

the shelf above the fire and fumbled among the pots and pans there, produc

ought her a tin cup of the spring water, he selected a brown pipe from a half do

all about it,"

t really seemed that she had planned her flight from the hour

icking out a red ember from the coals on the

lp, "and my bathing suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p

ned his hea

," he said; "wha

d Caroline; "you have t

r thoughtfully. "I suppose you would l

assured him, "I d

ning away?" he asked, settling into his own

teeth. He regarde

"I wish you'd take my

ed less solid and less certainly gold than before. A cool breeze swept through the wood and Caroline shivered in her torn nightdress. Th

nocked about all over the world more or less, and haven't got any wife or children or brothers and sisters of my own to advise, so I take it out on everybody else. Perhaps because I try to put

the birds spoke softly back and forth, a squirrel

o own the property like to have me here-and the first day I unpacked, up comes a nice girl-I used to make birch whistles for her mother-to tell me all about her young man. She brought me that spray of hone

st off the county road. He's got a new baby, and he was afraid it wouldn't pull through. He knew I'd seen a l

rvey. He'll live. Ju

He might have been talking to h

she won't die! 'Oh, Peter,' she says to me-she's fond of me because I'm the same age as a little boy of hers that died-'it seems to me that I can't wait,

d knocked hi

t's the use of running away? You'll keep on growing up, you know. It's one of the things that doesn't stop. You

ook he

he assured her, persu

he admitted, "and Aunt Edith. S

about Joe Holt?

a big white house with wistaria on

freshman," said Peter. "Then h

nt Edith, too?"

sed to. But I didn't know she-they were up in this country. I

e stage any more, you k

onder, a song about-Oh, so

," Caroline said importantly; "ye

said Pe

as a long silence. After a while he

an't wear knickers until you're one of the boys, and you can't be one of

come with sleep, and the old familiar names an

air tenderly with his lips. "If you persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, some boy, growing

Caroline murmu

e donkey. I don't believe they've missed you yet.

ufficiently to find herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the botto

ured, half asleep, "and you'

t yet. Tell her Peter brought you back. Just

n aisles, and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, the man striding e