The spring was close at hand before the bloom began to reappear--and then it was but fitfully--in Letty's cheek.

Neither her gayety nor her usual excess of timorousness returned.

A certain sad seriousness had taken the place of both, and she seemed to look out from deeper eyes.

I can not think that Letty had begun to perceive that there actually is a Nature shaping us to its own ends; but I think she had begun to feel that Mary lived in the conscious presence of such a power.

To Tom she behaved very sweetly, but more like a tender sister than a lover, and Mary began to doubt whether her heart was altogether Tom's.