As she started out from her little house, this summer morning, and
began her three-mile walk to the old homestead, she felt as if some
solemn event in her life were about to happen; her heart beat higher,
and brought about the suffocating feeling of a hand laid upon the
throat. She was a slight creature, with a delicate face and fine black
hair. Her slender body seemed all made for action, and the poise of an
assured motion dwelt in it and wrapped about its angularity like a
gracious charm. She was walking down a lane, her short skirts brushed
by the morning dew. She chose to go 'cross lots, not because in this
case it was nearer than the road, but because it seemed impossible to
go another way. Yet never in her life had she seen less of the outward
garment of things than she was seeing this morning. A flouting bobolink
flew from stake to stake in front of her, and bubbled out in melody.
She heard a scythe swishing in a neighboring field, and the musical
call of the mowing-machine afar, and she did not look up. Dumb to the
beautiful outer world, she was broad awake to human souls: the souls of
the Joyces, alive so long before her and stretching back into an
unknown past. They had lived, one after another, in the old house,
since colonial times; and now, after this quiet act of a concluding
drama, Dilly was going to lower the curtain, and sweep them from the
stage.
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