Half unconsciously she turned
toward the old mill. There it was, dusty and gray, and the
dripping old wheel creaked with its weight of shining water, and
the muffled roar of the unseen dam started an answering stream of
memories surging within her. She could see the window of her room
in the old brick boarding-house, and as she passed the gate, she
almost stopped to go in, but the face of a strange man who stood
in the door with a proprietary air deterred her. There was Hale's
little frame cottage and his name, half washed out, was over the
wing that was still his office. Past that she went, with a passing
temptation to look within, and toward the old school-house. A
massive new one was half built, of gray stone, to the left, but
the old one, with its shingles on the outside that had once caused
her such wonder, still lay warm in the sun, but closed and
deserted. There was the playground where she had been caught in
"Ring around the Rosy," and Hale and that girl teacher had heard
her confession. She flushed again when she thought of that day,
but the flush was now for another reason. Over the roof of the
schoolhouse she could see the beech tree where she had built her
playhouse, and memory led her from the path toward it.
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