My mind could not grasp what had happened,--even my
imagination could not help me. But one thing I knew: whether this had
all been real, or whether it had been a dream, I had seen the face of
Sylvia. This I knew as I knew I lived.
Slowly I came away, scarcely knowing how I walked or where I emerged
from the woods, and crossed the open country to the house of Captain
Jabe.
XXX.
A DISCOVERY.
I found the quilting party at supper. I could see them through the open
windows of the large living-room, and I heard their chatter and laughing
when I was still a considerable distance from the house. With my mind
quivering with the emotions excited by what had happened in the woods,
it was impossible for me to join a party like this. I walked around the
barn and into a little orchard, where, between two gnarled apple-trees,
there hung an old hammock, into which I threw myself.
There I lay, piling conjecture and supposition high upon each other; but
not at all could I conjecture how it was that the face which I had last
seen in my own home, under the gray bonnet of a sister of Martha, should
flash upon my vision in this far-away spot, and from the surface of a
woodland stream.
It was growing dusky, when I heard a loud whistle, and my name was
called.
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