This experience, so phantasmal and yet so poignant, led to the Zinias’ premature death. Conscience invaded Ellen now that disillusion had done its blighting work. There came a day when she could no longer keep to herself her deviation from the precise morals demanded by the Zinias.

It was after a walk toward evening up the mountain, full of pregnant silences, that she confessed:—

“You would despise me, if you really knew [Pg 41] me. I’m not the kind of a girl we are trying to be.”

I HATE YOUR SOCIETY ANYWAY! I NEVER DID WANT TO BE AN OLD MAID

It shocked me and thrilled me at the same time.

“What have you been doing?” I asked her.

“I can’t tell you,” she told me. “You would despise me too much.”

“Why, Ellen!” I cried. “Tell me about it.”

“No! No!” she said; and she buried her face in the moss in a very agony of shame. “I can’t tell a human soul.”

And she still left me with a feeling of having had an interesting sentimental experience. Thus may we, when young, rifle sweetness from the blossom of despair.

It was commu