"Thank you, Marie. You may go
now."
Hilda sat down by the table with the letter in her hand, still unopened.
She looked at it intently, turned it over, and felt its thickness with
her fingers. She believed that she sometimes had a kind of second-sight
about letters, and could tell before she read them whether they brought
good or evil tidings. She put this one down on the table in front of her
while she poured her tea. At last, with a little shiver of expectancy,
she tore open the envelope and read:--
Boston, February --
MY DEAR HILDA:--
It is after twelve o'clock. Every one else is in bed and I am sitting
alone in my study. I have been happier in this room than anywhere else
in the world. Happiness like that makes one insolent. I used to think
these four walls could stand against anything. And now I scarcely know
myself here. Now I know that no one can build his security upon the
nobleness of another person. Two people, when they love each other,
grow alike in their tastes and habits and pride, but their moral natures
(whatever we may mean by that canting expression) are never welded. The
base one goes on being base, and the noble one noble, to the end.
The last week has been a bad one; I have been realizing how things used
to be with me. Sometimes I get used to being dead inside, but lately it
has been as if a window beside me had suddenly opened, and as if all the
smells of spring blew in to me. There is a garden out there, with stars
overhead, where I used to walk at night when I had a single purpose and
a single heart.
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