CHAPTER III.
THE SHADOW.
There is no moment of life, however festive, that does not involve the near presence of a possible tragedy.

When the concert of life is playing the gayest and airiest music, it requires only the change of a little flat or sharp to modulate into the minor key.
There seemed at first glance only the elements of joyousness and gayety in the surroundings at the Pitkin farm.

Thanksgiving was come--the family, healthy, rosy, and noisy, were all under the one roof-tree.

There was energy, youth, intelligence, beauty, a pair of lovers on the eve of betrothal--just in that misty, golden twilight that precedes the full sunrise of avowed and accepted love--and yet behind it all was walking with stealthy step the shadow of a coming sorrow.
"What in the world ails James ?" said Diana as she retreated from the door and surveyed him at a distance from her chamber window.

His face was like a landscape over which a thunder-cloud has drifted, and he walked beside his father with a peculiar air of proud displeasure and repression.
At that moment the young man was struggling with the bitterest sorrow that can befall youth--the breaking up of his life-purpose.