Happiness, in the ordinary sense, might never be hers.

Alas for her dreams! But there had been given her a glimpse of something higher than pleasure and contentment.

Dreams were but dreams.

But she could still dream of what had been, of what might have been, of the beauty and mystery of life, of something in nature that called sweetly and irresistibly to her.

Who could rob her of the rolling, gray, velvety hills, and the purple peaks and the black ranges, among which she had been found a waif, a little lost creature, born like a columbine under the spruces?
Love, sudden-dawning, inexplicable love, was her secret, still tremulously new, and perilous in its sweetness.