CHAPTER XXXV

A YOUNG GIRL'S MIND

A young girl's mind is like a wood in Spring--now a rising mist of
bluebells and flakes of dappled sunlight; now a world of still, wan,
tender saplings, weeping they know not why. Through the curling twigs of
boughs just green, its wings fly towards the stars; but the next moment
they have drooped to mope beneath the damp bushes. It is ever yearning
for and trembling at the future; in its secret places all the countless
shapes of things that are to be are taking stealthy counsel of how
to grow up without letting their gown of mystery fall. They rustle,
whisper, shriek suddenly, and as suddenly fall into a delicious silence.
From the first hazel-bush to the last may-tree it is an unending
meeting-place of young solemn things eager to find out what they are,
eager to rush forth to greet the kisses of the wind and sun, and for
ever trembling back and hiding their faces. The spirit of that wood
seems to lie with her ear close to the ground, a pale petal of a hand
curved like a shell behind it, listening for the whisper of her own
life. There she lies, white and supple, with dewy, wistful eyes,
sighing: 'What is my meaning? Ah, I am everything! Is there in all
the world a thing so wonderful as I?... Oh, I am nothing--my wings are
heavy; I faint, I die!'

When Thyme, attended by the grey girl, emerged from the abyss at the
top, her cheeks were flushed and her hands clenched. She said nothing.
The grey girl, too, was silent, with a look such as a spirit divested of
its body by long bathing in the river of reality might bend on one who
has just come to dip her head. Thyme's quick eyes saw that look, and
her colour deepened. She saw, too, the glance of the Jewish youth when