i have a vivid vignette in my memory of my return to my father's house, down through the pine woods and by the winding path across the deep valley that separated our two ridges. i was thinking of mary and nothing but mary in all the world and of the friendly sweetness of her eyes and the clean strong sharpness of her voice. that sweet white figure of rachel that had been creeping to an ascendancy in my imagination was moonlight to her sunrise. i knew it was mary i loved and had always loved. i wanted passionately to be as she desired, the friend she demanded, that intimate brother and confederate, but all my heart cried out for her, cried out for her altogether.

i would be her friend, i repeated to myself, i would be her friend. i would talk to her often, plan with her, work with her. i could put my meanings into her life and she should throw her beauty over mine. i began already to dream of the talk of to-morrow's meeting....