Thus they stood through an eternity of understanding, which in the actual flight of time was only the moment that it took for Miss Sarah to turn around, but it seemed to me that her glad little cry of surprise: “Why, it must be Roger!” was echoed deep in Ellen’s heart; and turning to Ellen she said:—

“This is Mr. Roger Byington. You remember, Ellen dear, I told you he was going to stay with us.—But what a surprise—we didn’t expect you until this afternoon.”

“I started a day earlier so that I could walk over the mountain. I walked the last stage.” He looked at Ellen, whose eyes had never once left him and who had the look of having seen a miracle. So poignant seemed her look to me, so much did it tell me, that I remember I had the wish to stand between her and this strange young man, so that her heart shouldn’t be revealed to him, and between her and her Aunt Sarah, so that she would notice nothing; but I might have spared myself the pains. In a moment Aunt Sarah was leading him away to seek for Mr. Ephraim Grant.

I knew without Ellen telling me that this must be her friend of the mountain. She had told me about him in all naÏvetÉ. It had seemed to me sort of an Ellenesque thing to have happened, charming and delightful, though I had paid no attention to her belief that he was coming back.

“Did you know Mr. Byington was the one, Ellen?” I asked.

She shook her head. “How could I guess?”

We had been told that old friends of Miss Sarah’s had written asking for a boarding-place for their son, who was reading law after his return from abroad and wished a quiet place where he might study, and that Miss Sarah had invited him to stay at her house, but naturally I had not connected him with Ellen’s stranger.

Once in a long time things turn out the way that we dream that they will. Once, perhaps, in a lifetime all the dreamed-of and expected things focus themselves into one full moment. At such times the doors of our spirits open and we find the hidden roads to the spirits of others, and this was what happened to Ellen. Instead of Roger’s arrival dimming her present, everything came about as she had planned and it all worked in together into one marvelous day. For once Age understood Youth, for when Miss Sarah learned how this money had been laboriously come by, she said:—

“Ellen, you have the heart of a child, for only a child would have treasured up my word that I meant and didn’t mean, and I think, my dear, I’ve often scolded you for this very reason. You are a darling child, Ellen, but a trying one, and I hope you’ll never grow up.”

When Roger came back with Mr. Grant, “Look, young man,” she said. “Do you know what this is? This is one of the rarest things in the world; it’s a true gift. You have probably never made one in your whole life; you and your family go in and plank down your money and buy something pretty and go away. Now, whenever I look at this, Ellen, I shall think of your patience and self-denial,—yes, and your industry, and oh, dear, dear! I shall never be able to scold you again, which, as I know, you will often deserve.”

We sat there for a half-hour and I felt as though I were in the midst of a story, with my Ellen for the heroine.

Roger won us all that afternoon. In conversation he was the most delightful person in the world. There was about him a certain, subdued arrogance when he wasn’t talking, which changed when he smiled into the most delightful sunny winsomeness. He listened to those much older and those much younger than himself with an absorbed interest that gave the speaker the sensation of saying something of deep interest. Later we learned that this young prince and a trying bad little boy were the same person, but that day we only saw the young prince. I know that I myself had the impression of having had the window of Life suddenly thrown open wide, for with unconsciousness of what he was doing, he took us sweeping up and down the world. He had traveled a great deal in a day when traveling was much more of an adventure, and he had had adventures and real ones, as one of his temperament would be bound to have. He made one feel that one was living with a higher vitality, as Ellen did, and the way Ellen affected me then and later was as though she were a beautiful jewel that I had seen in the sun for the first time. On this first day she sat there shining with soft radiance and saying almost nothing, becoming, it seemed to me, transfigured before my eyes.

After a while Ellen rose to go, and Roger accompanied us, and I had to stay with them, having no pretext for leaving, as my house was beyond Ellen’s down the street; but it seemed to me that, without meaning to, they subtly shut me out by the very way that they included me in their laborious conversation, for as soon as we three were walking down the sidewalk, under the great double row of elms which bordered our street, their touching courtesy made a stranger of me as nothing else could have done. Ellen wrote:—