that before dark she could reach the hills, where perhaps there were a
few languid flowers and pools, and return just tired enough to eat and
go to sleep. She rather thought that she would postpone her call on
the Engles until to-morrow.

"It's mañana-land, after all," she told herself with a quick smile.

Half an hour later she found a spot where the trees stood in a denser
growth, looking greener, more vigorous . . . less thirsty. She could
fancy the great roots, questing far downward through the layers of dry
soil, thrusting themselves almost with a human, passionate eagerness
into the water they had found. Here she threw herself down, lying upon
her back, gazing up through the branches and leaves.

Never until now had she known the meaning of utter stillness. She saw
a bird, a poor brown, unkempt little being; it had no song to offer the
silence, and in a little flew away listlessly. She had seen a rabbit,
a big, gaunt, uncomely wretch, disappearing silently among the clumps
of brush.

Her spirit, essentially bright and happy, had striven hard with a new
form of weariness all day. Not only was she coming into another land
than that which she knew and understood, she was entering another phase
of her life. She had chosen voluntarily, without advice or suggestion;
she had had her reasons and they had seemed sufficient; they were still
sufficient. She had chosen wisely; she held to that, her judgment
untroubled. But that stubbornly recurrent sense that with the old
landmarks she had abandoned the old life, that both in physical fact
and in spiritual and mental actuality she was at the threshold of an
unguessed, essentially different life, was disquieting. There is no