Those leaves were floating
through the shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-zagged
softly down to join them. The wind was helping them on the water,
too, and along came one brown leaf that was shaped like a tiny
trireme--its stem acting like a rudder and keeping it straight
before the breeze--so that it swept past the rest as a yacht that
she was once on had swept past a fleet of fishing sloops. She was
not unlike that swift little ship and thirty yards ahead were
rocks and shallows where it and the whole fleet would turn topsy-
turvy--would her own triumph be as short and the same fate be
hers? There was no question as to that, unless she took the wheel
of her fate in her own hands and with them steered the ship.
Thinking hard, she walked on slowly, with her hands behind her and
her eyes bent on the road. What should she do? She had no money,
her father had none to spare, and she could accept no more from
Hale. Once she stopped and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue
sky, and once under the heavy helplessness of it all she dropped
on the side of the road and sat with her head buried in her arms--
sat so long that she rose with a start and, with an apprehensive
look at the mounting sun, hurried on.
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