Chapter 4

"MINNIE, MINNIE," SHE SAID, "I MUST GUARD MY SECRET."

Donald Morrison was now twenty-three. The promise of his boyhood had been realized. He was well made, with sinews like steel. He had a blonde moustache, clustering hair, a well shaped mouth, firm chin. His blue eyes had a proud, fearless look. The schoolmarm had taught Donald the three "R's"; he had read a little when he could spare the money for books; and at the period we are now dealing with he was looked up to by all in the village as a person of superior knowledge. His youth and young manhood had been spent working upon his father's farm. Latterly he had been working upon land which his father had given him, in the hope that he would marry and settle down. He had become restless. The village was beginning to look small, and he asked himself with wonderment how he had been content in it so long. The work was hard and thankless. Was this life? Was there nothing beyond this? Was there not not a great world outside the forest? What was this? Was it not stagnation? The woods--yes, the woods were beautiful, but why was it they made him sad? Why was it that when the sun set against the background of the purple line of trees, he felt a lump in his throat? Why, when he walked along the roads in the summer twilight, did the sweet silence oppress him? He could not tell. He knew that he wanted away. He longed to be in the world of real men and women, where joy and suffering, and the extremest force of passion had active play.

Minnie was now a schoolmarm--neat and simple, and sweet. Her figure was slender, and her hair a deep gold, parted simply in the centre, brought over the temples in crisp waves, and wound into a single coil behind. Her head was small and gracefully poised; her teeth as white as milk, because they had never experienced the destructive effects of confectionery; her cheeks, two roses in their first fresh bloom, because she had been reared upon simple food; her figure, slight, supple and well proportioned. She was eighteen. Her beautiful brown eyes wore a sweetly serious look. She had thought as a woman. She was pious, but somehow when she wandered through the woods, and noted how the wild flowers smiled upon her, and listened to the birds as they shook their very throats for joy, she could only think of the love, not the anger of God. God was good. His purpose was loving. How warm and beautiful and sweet was the sun! The sky was blue, and was there not away beyond the blue a place where the tears that stained the cheek down here would be all wiped away? Sorrow! Oh, yes, there was sorrow here, and somehow, the dearest things we yearned for were denied us. There were heavy burdens to bear, and life's contrasts were agonizing, and faith staggered a little; but when Minnie went to the woods with these thoughts, and looked into the timid eye of the violet, she said to herself softly, "God is love."

A simple