who were determined never to lose sight of her until the end they sought was actually attained. There, in the verdant freshness of that new world, Lisa experienced a strange exaltation of the senses. Every wooded path unfolded treasures of leafy bud, blossom, and brier, and of beautiful winged things that crept and rustled among the grasses. There was the ever new surprise of the first wild flowers, the abounding mystery of the bird’s note and the brook’s song, the daily greeting of bees and butterflies, frogs and fishes, field mice and squirrels; so that the universe, which in the dead past had been dreary and without meaning, suddenly became warm and friendly, and she, the alien, felt a sense of kinship with all created things.
Helen had crossed the continent to imbibe the wisdom of the East, and had brought back stores of knowledge to spend in Lisa’s service; but Rhoda’s sacrifice was perhaps the most complete, for Mrs. Grubb having at first absolutely refused to part with Lisa, Rhoda had flung herself into the breach and taken the twins to her mother’s cottage in the mountains.
She came up the broad steps, on a certain
