Kesiah's long, sallow
face under the hard little curls of her false front, had never
appeared more grotesque than it did in the midst of the delicate spring
landscape. Every fragile blossom, every young leaf, every blade of
grass, flung an insult at her as she stood there frowning fiercely at
the sunbeams. Yet only five minutes before she had suffered a sharp
recrudescence of soul--of that longing for happiness which is a part
of the resurrection of the spring, and which may survive not only the
knowledge of its own fruitlessness, but a belief in the existence of the
very happiness for which it longs. All the unlived romance in her heart
had come to life with the young green around her. Middle-age had not
deadened, it had merely dulled her. For the pang of desire is not,
after all, the divine prerogative of youth, nor has it even a conscious
relation to the possibility of fulfilment. Her soul looked out of her
eyes while she gazed over the azalea in her hand--yet, in spite of the
songs of the poets, the soul in her eyes did not make them beautiful.
"I came down with Jonathan, Molly," she said. "You will doubtless find
him at the brook.
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